The Energy Crusades

by Valerie Noble

  I followed him swiftly to the last dormitory building. He paused only to smash his fist against a tree in anger and I had to pull him away before he could destroy his hand completely. As it was, he left a mark in the white bark of a birch tree, but his hand got the worst of it.

  We went to his room, upstairs and at the end of the hall. He closed the door behind us, and I found myself alone with him.

  "How could you sit there with them?" Atticus began pacing around the room. "How can you sit there with those Students and—"

  "Knock it off, Atticus," I cut him off immediately. "I'm not here to answer to you, okay? Where are your healing supplies?"

  He gestured toward the bathroom where I found a small bag with the needed supplies. His room was a mess. The bed was unmade, his clothing and football gear was strewn all over the floor, and dirty dishes cluttered his desk.

  "An organized space helps with an organized mind," I reminded him. He sat on his unkempt bed while I took the chair by the desk, moving it so I sat across from him, our knees almost touching. I took his hand in mine and began to heal it.

  "Don't start in with that Athlete garbage, Kaia. We're not at any Athlete Academy. We're at this horrible University."

  I straightened his fingers and began rubbing a mending balm into his hands.

  "I'm upset too, Atticus. I don't like this 'Social' thing any more than you do. But did you have to get us in trouble? You need to keep your temper in check. Blaming the Students doesn't help any."

  "Why should they be rewarded for anything? They're going to be allowed to wear regular clothes for a whole day? Have you ever spent a single day out of your energy suit? As a reward for all of your hard work, or for any reason at all?"

  I hadn't, not even one.

  "Why do you stick up for them? They have no love for us!" His agitation continued to grow.

  "And why should they? You just screamed at them and knocked their dinners to the floor."

  "This is wrong, Kaia, and you know it!" he pulled his hands away roughly. "Why do you side with them when you should be siding with me? Why do you align yourself with that Unviable? Your place is with me!" His eyes flashed with anger.

  "I'm not siding with anyone. I'm trying to fit in, to make friends and learn to trust my Crusaders. Don't you need to do the same?" I took his hand again and he let me. I began to wrap it in strips of cloth to keep it as immobile as possible while the bones mended. By tomorrow, his hand would be as good as new.

  "It's not as easy for me as it is for you," he answered, setting his hand down gingerly.

  "Nothing is easy for me, Atticus. Not even trying to be friends with you."

  He smiled then, and his face truly was handsome. His dark eyes were full of sadness, and his features could be hard with resentment, but when he smiled, he was nice to look at. I knew a little about his life. He had a younger sister, also an Athlete. She played football for the Eridanus Grid, their home Grid in the south, near a great river. We had similar lives, the two of us, but our attitudes were worlds apart.

  "They don't love me like they love you." He was calmer now.

  "I don't think they love either of us at this point."

  "You know what the real truth is?" he whispered, eyes filled with pain. "There is no benefit to being an Athlete. We've had no privileges. These Students have. We've done nothing but play our sport, always being fed it was something special, but you know what? If I could do it all over again, I'd have stayed home. We have nothing, we don't even have real friends like they do." He said the words quietly but the weight of them pressed against us.

  He reached out and pulled off my glasses, setting them next to him on the bed. "They love the girl with the purple eyes," he said softly, caressing my cheek with his uninjured hand. When he leaned in to kiss me, I turned my head away and his forehead came to rest on my cheek. We stayed connected a few moments before he lifted his head, his emotions a tangled mess all around him. He couldn't understand why I didn't want him.

  "Just because we're both Athletes doesn't mean we'll automatically fall in love," I told him gently.

  "Maybe if I had a triangle on the back of my neck you would love me better," he answered bitterly. "Don't think I'll stand by and watch you take up with an Unviable. It isn't right. You belong with an Athlete."

  "I'm not 'taking up' with anybody, Atticus. Why do you hate him so much?"

  "Because he has everything — even an Athlete. It should be me."

  "He doesn't have anything! How can you say that? He's marked forever for something that isn't his fault and his family has known loss beyond anything we can imagine. You have everything, Atticus. You should be happier."

  "Are you happy?" he shot back. I wasn't, no, far from it. Especially when he made his comment about 'the girl with the purple eyes'. I was also marked by something beyond my control and wore glasses to stave off whispers about strange eyes. Our conversation came to a halt as a loud banging sounded at the door.

  "Hold on!" Atticus called, not missing a beat. "We need to put our clothes on!"

  I shook my head at him and walked to the door, opening it to find Ajax on the other side. His eyes traveled over me as if checking the validity of Atticus's words.

  "Can we help you, Student?" Atticus casually placed his arm around my shoulder as he came to the door.

  "As a matter of fact you can," Ajax answered coolly. "You can get down to the cafeteria and clean it up, or you can go see Professor Baal."

  We chose the first one. Ajax walked away, and we headed back to the cafeteria, dark and deserted at the late hour, and ever so messy. There were dirty dishes everywhere there'd been a Student and all of it was left for us, including where Atticus had swept the dishes to the floor. Only one table was completely clean, without a speck of dirt.

  "This is for you." Atticus pointed out. The only spotless table was the one where my fellow crusaders had sat. My heart did a little flip flop at the gesture.

  I looked around in dismay. It was going to take us hours to clean up the mess, and Atticus only had the use of one hand, which meant I would have to do the bulk of the work, though he was the one who'd lost control.

  "Did I remember to thank you for coming to get me tonight?" I teased him.

  He chuckled a little and gave me a playful shove. "Let's do this," he answered, picking up a dish and dropping it into one of the busing trays left out for us.

  Two hours later we had the tables cleared and wiped clean, and the entire floor swept and mopped to a sparkling shine. What remained was an enormous pile of dirty dishes still needing to be washed, dried, and put away. We stood regarding them dejectedly, and in those moments of silence I could feel pain radiating off of Atticus. His hand throbbed and he'd already used it beyond all reasonable limits when it should have remained immobile.

  "I'll do the rest, Atticus. Go take care of your hand."

  He stared at me silently, fighting his emotions. "I can't leave you here," he had a pained look on his face.

  "You can," I answered, projecting my will onto him. I wanted him to leave with a clear conscience. "Your hand won't heal if you don't get some rest tonight."

  He looked at the floor. It wasn't possible for him to help with the dishes, but he didn't want to leave me either.

  "If it was the other way around, you would do it for me, right?" I nudged his shoulder with my own. Athletes helped each other and always would. I'd said the right words too, because he relaxed a bit.

  "I would, Kaia. You know I would.

  "I nodded at him, "I do. Get some sleep."

  Atticus left, and I was alone with the dishes. I sighed heavily and put my hands in the hot soapy water, clearing my head and trying not to think about what a long, awful day it had been. After about thirty minutes of working, Ajax appeared. Without saying a word, he picked up a towel and began to dry the dishes. Exhaustion had settled in my bones and his act of kindness almost brought me to tears.

  "Please don't help me, Ajax," I said, my voice almost t
rembling. Of all people, he should not be the one to do Atticus's work.

  "He asked me to," he answered. Our eyes met. His weren't as gray as they'd been earlier and I studied him openly, wondering if he was telling the truth. I tried to get into his mind, but he guarded it well and I could see nothing.

  "Stop that!" Ajax scolded, almost smiling. "I am telling the truth."

  "Stop what?" I asked innocently. If Ajax could feel me try to get into his mind, then most likely he could hear me when I spoke to him without words. He could hear me; he just chose to ignore me. The realization stung more than a little.

  "He came to my room and said he left you here with a mountain of dishes. He asked if I would help you."

  "That doesn't sound like something Atticus would do." I couldn't imagine him knocking on Ajax's door and asking for a favor.

  Ajax shrugged. "Well, he did."

  I paused for a moment to digest the idea of Atticus asking Ajax for a favor.

  "Why would he think you would help me anyway?"

  "I guess I don't have to help you, Kaia. I can just stay in my room and wait for you. But I can't go to sleep until you get back to your room. Might as well help."

  I asked no more questions, uncertain if Ajax's answer was what I was looking for, or what answer would have made me happy in any case. We worked together in companionable silence until all the dishes were clean and dry.

  Upstairs, before our bedroom doors, Ajax picked up my hands and examined them. They were raw from the dishwater. He turned them over gently and rubbed them a bit. His hands were warm and his touch felt good. My hands tingled as he held them.

  "Make sure to heal these hands. We're going into a virtual exercise tomorrow, all six of us, and you're going to need them."

  "Okay," I spoke quietly but my voice seemed to fill the empty hallway. With the lateness of the hour, it felt like we were the only two awake. He let go of my hands and stepped away but didn't turn toward his room. We both hesitated and the silence hovered between us.

  "Why do you hate him?" I finally asked. He looked at the floor, at the walls, at the ceiling, and finally at me.

  "Because he has everything," he answered flatly. He stepped toward his room and said, "Goodnight, Kaia," before opening his door and leaving me alone in the hall. His words were unsettling. Besides the irony of it, the fact they each hated the other for the same unfounded reason, I realized Ajax hated Atticus in part because of his status as an Athlete, which meant he probably had the same feeling for me. I left those ugly thoughts in the hall and went into my room to find whatever rest I could.

  Chapter Ten

  Virtual Fighting

  "I think all of you are familiar with Malik, right?" Ajax asked. The six of us gathered in The Weapons Room for our first assignment as a team. Malik had trained with us on the lawns for only a few days, but it had been time enough for him to take a liking to Tory. He often hung back, matching her pace in order to stay close to her though I was pretty sure his physical capabilities at least matched my own. At night, when we were alone in our room together, Tory would chatter about him excitedly, her cheeks flushing as she spoke of him. I marveled at how quickly the two of them seemed smitten with each other, and fought pangs of jealousy whenever I would see their heads bent together, laughing and talking easily. I didn't know how to be as carefree in my relationships.

  "Hello, Tory," Malik bowed to her and she returned the gesture. He greeted the rest of us, but not as sweetly as he did her.

  "Today we're going to practice hand-to-hand combat," Ajax continued. "We'll be going into a virtual world and you need to be ready to face a variety of challenges. We'll be looking for a black bag," he pulled up an image on the monitor placed in the Weapons Room for our use. The bag was medium size with two handles at the top and a zipper down the middle. There was nothing special about it.

  "What's inside?" Balor asked.

  "It's just an exercise," Ajax explained. "I don't think the contents have any special significance, we just want to recover the property."

  "Will other teams be given the same task?" I asked.

  "Yes," Ajax let his gaze settle on me as he answered my question. "But we need to get the bag first." On that point, we could all agree. We might not meet any other teams during our exercise, but other teams could be competing simultaneously whether we encountered them or not. The Teachers might throw us together in the same virtual world, or put us all in separate worlds, depending on what they wanted from us.

  We had many more questions pertaining to the exercise, all of which Ajax patiently answered, but he didn't know much more than we did. We would be staying until the bag was found, either a few hours, several days, or even longer, depending on how quickly we completed our task and what obstacles challenged us. Our packs contained necessary supplies for an extended stay, just in case. The exercise would provide an escape, but Ajax sternly warned us against using it.

  "If you find yourself in trouble, you need to rely on your fellow Crusaders and not on the escape." He was adamant.

  In addition to our packs, Ajax handed out our staffs and reminded us there would be virtual fighters present. Staffs, when fully extended, were weapons similar in size and shape to what used to be called swords, only they weren't meant for cutting. When retracted, the handle was light and easily concealable. Like orbs, they were energized, and could be used to knock an opponent down, temporarily paralyze them, stun them, or even steal their energy. Every human trained with one, and all of us were adept at handling them. Staffs weren't trainable like orbs, but they could be deadly nonetheless.

  "Above all, this is a virtual fighting exercise. You need to protect yourself from their staffs and you need to fight them. We'll probably be outnumbered, and if you get paralyzed, you're out of the exercise, but since we're a team, we'll win or lose as a team. If any of us can outlast them and find the bag, then we all win," Ajax said.

  We lined up against the wall and waited as the room transformed. The walls disappeared and a chill settled over us. We found ourselves on an abandoned road, the asphalt ruined beyond repair. It crumbled and cracked away from us, bulging in places and completely non-existent in others, where it had totally disintegrated. The road wound its decrepit way up a rocky hillside, toward an enormous building perched on top. Next to us, an ancient metal sign pitted with rust rose from the ground.

  "Looks like we missed the bus," Balor joked, squinting at the sign where a faded image of what humans once used as public transportation was still visible. It'd been a long time since any sort of bus passed this way. The whole feel of the place was ominous, from the dull gray sky and the absence of warmth, to the building looming atop the hill, huge and uninviting. It was a wooden structure with non-solarized glass windows, the kind made before the War, boasting steep roofs, rounded turrets and a multitude of dormers protruding from beneath the eaves. Rocky hills surrounded the building, devoid of any greenery to soften the dark gray colors of both rock and sky.

  Eerily symmetrical openings in those rocky hills looked like empty windows framed in granite and could not be mistaken for a natural occurrence.

  "Cave dwellers." Caden put in words what we all dreaded to acknowledge. Many people in our society believed the existence of cave dwellers was just a myth, much the way humans once believed the same about the presence of aliens. Sightings of cave dwellers were rare and unreliable, but it was said an entire population of humans had created a life underground during the tremendous turmoil preceding the Oil Wars. They planned their escape from the sun-kissed surface of the planet carefully, bringing supplies and knowledge of how to survive underground.

  It might have been brushed off as elaborate rumors, except near and far, sightings universally described pale creatures with pale eyes, untouched by the sun and seemingly translucent. Many people referred to them as the ghosts in the caves.

  "I've heard the Resistance has tried to unite them to their cause," Caden continued. He'd heard the same rumors we all had.

>   "Forget about them." Ajax's voice was authoritative. "What we need to do is get to the building and find the bag. Let's not worry about the caves right now. Ready?"

  We began to walk. The old road wound its way up and up, broken and lumpy, snaking through the rocks as it zigzagged toward the building. Near the top, the path was blocked. Large boulders formed a wall, and in its center, there was a door that appeared to be as thick as the rocks and just as unbreakable. The obstruction was odd because while the wall was high, it wasn't impossibly so, and we could have easily climbed it. Neither would it have been difficult to climb the rocks from a number of different places, so why bother blocking the path?

  "Looks like the door's locked." Ajax was curious enough to try the iron handle.

  "Really?" Balor said, stepping up to the door. He brought up his leg and gave the door five ferocious kicks, smashing it until it fell away, broken. "Now it's open," he smiled and stepped through, just as casual as can be. He hadn't even broken a sweat. Tory and Malik followed him through, then Caden and Ajax. I stopped a moment to examine the door, noting it had been at least thirty centimeters thick. Balor had kicked through it as if it were particle board. He turned back toward me and winked, watching as I examined the destruction.

  "I've got brains too you know, Kaia." He held his arm up and flexed while he spoke. "I'm not just muscle; I'm the whole package, ladies." Malik cuffed him on the head but Balor only laughed and continued up the hill. Ajax caught my eye and gave me a little smile, which I returned.

  "An odd place for a door, don't you think?" I asked him.

  "An alarm?" he pondered. The door wasn't there for nothing. Sure enough, as we rounded the last bend and the building was no more than 30 meters away, a line of Virtuals stood in the path to greet us.

  "Go ahead, Balor," Caden nudged him, "kick your way through this door."

  We pulled out our staffs as the guards formed a circle surrounding us. They outnumbered us maybe two to one and we formed our own circle, backs together and facing outwards toward their unseen faces. Virtuals could take on many forms, but these were dressed like Athletes, all in black, tall and formidable. Their faces were covered by the same dark, solarized masks all Virtuals wore, giving them their robot-like anonymity.