by Eva Brandt
I wanted to make an exception too and crush this idiot to pieces. But if I did that, I’d be expelled and things would get even worse.
“We’ll take Selene to the dorm now. She doesn’t need any further treatment, just rest. Thank you for your help.”
“Don’t mention it,” Dr. Bell drawled, “but do remember my words. Ms. Renard doesn’t belong here.”
Selene opened her mouth to defend herself, but Pollux picked her up in his arms before she could do so. “Your advice is neither wanted nor needed,” he said in her stead.
As he carried her out of the med bay, Selene started to argue with us. “You shouldn’t have gotten in my way. I can speak for myself.”
“You can, yes, but someone else needs to speak for you too,” Pollux reasoned. “You won’t change their minds in a day. Until they see you’re an asset, they’ll keep treating you like trash, so we have to be there to cushion the blows.”
“I’m sorry you don’t like our decision, but the alternative is abandoning you, and I don’t think that would go over well.”
Selene clenched her jaw, obviously realizing we were right, but still frustrated about it. “Why are you helping me? You don’t think I belong here either, do you?”
“Yes, but you’re still a Grand Chimera Warrior, the tamer of the Sphinx,” I offered. “Everyone in our unit sticks together. That’s the rule.”
“We might have our disagreements, but at the end of the day, we have to keep each other safe,” Pollux added. “That’s what we’re trying to do for you.”
“Oh.” Selene shot us a shaky smile. “Thank you. I appreciate that.”
She likely wouldn’t appreciate it as much if she realized we might be far more dangerous to her than the rude medic. Pollux hadn’t lied to her when he’d told her we wanted to keep her safe, but I still believed that involved her leaving the academy.
I hoped Brendan had a better plan than the slow method he’d originally settled on, because that one wasn’t working.
Chimera Training
Selene
The day after the fiasco in my very first class, I woke up with a headache, in my bed at the dorm. The last thing I remembered was Pollux carrying me here. Had I fallen asleep? If so, I must’ve missed my other classes from my first day, as well as two meals.
I would’ve been a little more worried about that had I not been too busy eyeing the two men currently seated by my bedside. The space wasn’t exactly generous, but somehow, they fit.
Both Brendan and Knox were bent over a device I couldn’t hope to identify. It looked a little like one of the ancient tablets we’d learned about in school, but it was obviously something different. The symbols on its back glowed with an energy that made my skin crawl and the screen almost seemed alive.
When they saw I was awake, they put the device away and focused on me. “Ms. Renard, good morning,” Brendan greeted me. “How do you feel?”
A part of me wanted to hide and pretend I was fine, but after what had happened the day before, I wasn’t sure that was such a good idea. “I have a bit of a migraine,” I admitted. “Other than that, I’m mostly okay.”
Brendan nodded, not seeming surprised by my confession. “A lot of new tachyon users suffer from such side-effects. Can you tell us what happened? Dr. Bell wasn’t very clear.”
Dr. Bell had been a complete and utter dick. I might not remember everything clearly, but I remembered that much.
“He blamed me for the whole thing, didn’t he?” I clenched my fists and tried very hard not to scream. “It wasn’t my fault. Professor Strange asked me to demonstrate tachyon manipulation. I tried and something went wrong.”
“Demonstrate tachyon manipulation,” Knox repeated. “On your first day.”
His eyes flickered crimson and he took a deep breath. Brendan grabbed his knee and squeezed it. His demeanor remained perfectly calm, as if nothing was wrong.
I couldn’t say I felt the same. Was it my impression or had Knox’s fingernails just turned into claws?
Brendan cleared his throat, drawing my attention away from Knox. “It would appear we all underestimated the disdainful attitude our fellows have toward Terran women. We never thought staff members would try to harm you.”
I didn’t bother telling him that my parents hadn’t been as optimistic. I had hoped the teachers would at least respect their own position and mine, but apparently, that would’ve been too much to ask for.
“This morning, we have Chimera Training,” Brendan continued. “Since we’re all in the same unit, we’ll go together. After that, we’ll make the arrangements to ensure this doesn’t happen again. Now, are you up for some breakfast?”
As if on cue, my stomach rumbled so loudly it reminded me of a chimera’s engine. I would’ve been embarrassed, but the sound seemed to distract Knox from whatever he was thinking. The dangerous glint in his eyes vanished and his lips twisted into a tiny smile. “I guess that’s a yes. Let’s go then. I think August and Pollux have yet to introduce you to the marvels of the Chimera Academy mess hall.”
They hadn’t. The public mess hall had been closed before the school year had started and the day before, I hadn’t gotten the chance to go. I forced a smile, telling myself it couldn’t be worse than my experience in class and with the med bay. “All right. Just give me a moment to change.”
“Of course,” Brendan said, already getting up. “We’ll wait for you outside.”
I rushed through my morning preparations, grimacing at the sight of my untamed, red hair. At this rate, Sphinx would ditch me and I’d end up with Medusa as a chimera.
“I wouldn’t do that, Selene,” Sphinx whispered in my mind. “Besides, Medusa is dormant and has been for centuries. She has no interest in tamers. Not that you’re supposed to know about it.”
I blinked and realized that, indeed, Sphinx had never mentioned Medusa in our conversations and my fellow tamers hadn’t either. Why had that thought popped up in my head?
“You happened to catch a glimpse of Professor Strange’s thoughts yesterday,” Sphinx explained. “You’ll find that every chimera has specific abilities and sometimes, those skills are transferred to tamers.”
Wow. I hadn’t known about that. I thought about the claws I’d seen in Knox earlier and revised my opinion that I’d imagined it.
“Cerberus tamers are always very savage, in more than one way,” Sphinx said cryptically. “But don’t worry. He’ll keep his claws to himself.”
I was more worried about mastering my own skill than the possibility of Knox Alexander deciding to gore me in his sleep. If he wanted to hurt me, he didn’t need claws to do it.
I made a mental note to discreetly approach my fellow Chimera Warriors about it later, maybe tonight. If I hadn’t heard anything about this before, it was probably not widely known information and we wouldn’t be able to discuss it out in the open.
I zipped up my uniform and bound my hair back, like August and Pollux had advised me on my first day here. Once I was ready, I left the room.
Brendan and Knox were waiting outside, just like they’d said. “I didn’t take too long, did I?” I asked.
“Not at all,” Brendan replied automatically. I wanted to kick myself, because what else could he have said that wouldn’t be rude?
I couldn’t read him at all and had no idea what he thought about me. But throughout this past week, I’d learned he had an aversion to poor manners. He’d always been perfectly polite with me, unlike his companions. And while I appreciated that, it also made me uneasy. Polite masks always tended to conceal a lot of secrets.
But for now, he was helping me, so even if he had a hidden agenda, I’d accept his assistance. I’d worry about the rest when I wasn’t in danger of losing my life and sanity because of the other men at this damn school.
The mess hall was, naturally, the place where all these people met up, staff and students alike. When the three of us walked in, the noisy room turned dead silent. Hundreds of eyes zeroed in on me
and I wished I could’ve gone back to the hangars and eaten rations with the far friendlier chimeras.
Since that wasn’t possible, I kept walking. Knox and Brendan flanked me, so no one would dare to try anything.
Maybe my mother had been right, I thought with a distant dose of hysteria. Maybe I was supposed to earn the favor of the members of my unit, so that I could keep myself safe from everyone else.
August and Pollux waved at us from a table. Apparently, they’d arrived sooner and had secured us all meals. “Hey, guys,” August greeted us with a small smile. “Mission accomplished. We grabbed some of the meat patties that aren’t artificial.”
“Thank Tartarus,” Knox mumbled. “If I had to eat anything created in a lab, I would’ve killed someone today.”
He sat next to August, in front of a large dish of something that looked like steamed beef. I eyed it warily, suspecting it was very different from the food we had at home.
Brendan took the seat on Knox’s other side and Pollux patted the spot next to him. “Ms. Renard, we got something for you too. We didn’t know what you liked, so we guessed and grabbed a variety.”
“Thank you,” I replied. “And please, call me Selene. There’s no point in staying so formal if we’re in the same unit together.”
I wriggled onto the steel bench, trying and utterly failing to recognize the food on my tray. It looked like I’d have to trust their judgment on this one, because there was no way to tell if I’d like or hate anything.
The only familiar item was the canister of milk—and that was just because it said ‘milk’ on it. Relieved, I started with that. “I didn’t realize you have milk available at the academy.”
“The milk is artificial, but the flavor isn’t too bad,” August replied. “It’s better than the other available drinks anyway. I do not recommend the coffee. It’s poison, no matter what Knox says.”
“Any tea?” I asked as I took a sip of my milk.
Pollux chuckled and shook his head. “No way. Tea is a luxury product. We only get it when we’re at home, never at the academy.”
His words reminded me of the differences between our upbringings. As a child and a daughter of the High Priestess of Gaia, I’d never lacked real meals. My mother had grown trees with her own hands, made sure the cattle we owned were healthy, checked the eggs for lingering radiation. Tea was one of the few things that had always been available, even in the leanest years. But here, there were no trees, no animals, only metal.
Still, the rations I’d been eating for the past week hadn’t been great either, so I swallowed the milk without protesting. It tasted more like impure flavored water to me. I half-expected sensors to start screaming ‘radiation alert’. If this wasn’t too bad, I couldn’t imagine how much worse everything else would be.
As it turned out, not all of it was awful. I found I liked the square brown cube which Brendan identified as a pea mix. I didn’t have as much meat on my tray as Knox, but I ate all of it, since it seemed organic too.
On the bright side, it was very filling, so I didn’t need to force myself through a long meal. Even if I’d been starving, the food fixed my problem. Obviously, the meals were meant to be practical, not enjoyable.
My companions devoured everything on their plates, with Knox and August finishing first. Pollux and Brendan seemed to eat a little more slowly, and yet, before I knew it, their food was all gone.
By the time we were done, the mess hall was starting to empty. I ignored the looks the other students kept throwing my way, feeling a little more ready to start my day.
In fact, I looked forward to it. The day before had gone poorly, but I did have some knowledge of chimera piloting, so I wouldn’t suck at it as much as I had at tachyon manipulation. And if nothing else, Brendan, Knox, August, and Pollux were unlikely to assault me in the middle of a lesson.
We left the mess hall together, in silence. Brendan had pulled out the tablet and was studying it again. He walked ahead of our group, with Knox by his side. I was right behind them and August and Pollux took the back row, completing our formation.
It was embarrassing to be considered so vulnerable. I didn’t want to be this person, to always be deemed weak and breakable. I could stand on my own two feet and prove to everyone here that I deserved to be chosen as Sphinx’s tamer. How was I going to do that if I had to rely on other people for the smallest things?
“You’ll do fine,” Sphinx assured me. “Just give yourself a little time. It’s wise to take them up on what they offer, until you’re a little more settled in, at least. After that, it’ll be easy enough to rid yourself of them.”
“Are you saying that I should use them for their power and discard them?” I asked in disbelief. “But we all belong to the same unit.”
“My dear Selene, you’re still much too kind. I won’t lie. It’s part of why I chose you. But I need you to remember one important thing. If you want to survive at Chimera Academy, your soul needs to be made of steel.”
A shiver coursed down my spine at her warning. A soul of steel. Why did I get the feeling that those words were more than a metaphor?
“What does that mean, Sphinx?”
She didn’t reply, her presence disappearing from the back of my mind. I’d have been annoyed, but once she was gone, I noticed my headache had returned with a vengeance.
Right. I wasn’t supposed to abuse long-distance communication with my chimera. That was very easy to forget.
Fortunately, I wouldn’t have to wait for much longer to see Sphinx again and have a real conversation with her. The hangars were up ahead. Here, I’d be able to get some peace and quiet, just like I had before the school year had started. And maybe I could get some training in that wouldn’t go awfully wrong.
The chimeras were all waiting in a circle, although ‘waiting’ was a poor word to describe their current activity. Sphinx was engaged in a game of chess with Typhon, while Cerberus was cheering them on. Scylla and Charybdis watched the whole process with interest. I’d only caught glimpses of the latter two chimeras before, but now that I could see them, I had to admit they were as terrifyingly beautiful as my Sphinx.
Charybdis’s form looked like a gigantic serpent and her most preeminent feature was her gigantic mouth. Her scales glittered in a mix of black and crimson and a small protuberance on her back signaled the spot where the cockpit was supposed to be.
Scylla was a little bit like Typhon, in that her upper body was humanoid. Her lower half was a mass of tentacles and wolf heads. On occasion, the heads would snap at Cerberus, although it looked teasing and companionable instead of threatening.
When they saw us come in, the chimeras set their game aside. Sphinx waved her paw and the massive board dissipated in bright speckles of light.
“Good morning, Selene, gentlemen. Time for a short flight?”
“Indeed, Lady Sphinx,” Brendan replied.
“Oh, don’t be so formal. Any friend of Typhon’s is a friend of mine.”
And yet, she’d told me she didn’t trust Brendan or anyone else here. Would I ever be able to fully understand Sphinx?
I would ask, but maybe not just yet. Maybe for a little while, I could focus on the simple joy of flying.
When she extended her paw toward me, I happily climbed on top of it. The cockpit opened and I slid inside. The belts tightened around my body and the neural link activated once again.
Outside, August and Pollux got in their chimeras. “We’ll start with a flight test against us,” Pollux said through the coms. “What do you say, Selene? Can you beat us?”
Despite everything that had been going wrong in my life as of late, I couldn’t help a small laugh. “That’s my line. Can you beat me?”
As the hangar bay doors opened, I guided Sphinx into the air. I became one with the chimera and forgot all about the people who thought I was inferior, just because of my gender.
* * *
Brendan
She was amazing. I’d never seen a pilot as
talented as Selene Renard since the first time I’d watched August and Pollux come together on the battlefield. Knox had told me she’d neutralized those terrorists in New Washington, but I hadn’t actually realized the true extent of her talent until now.
“She’s better than I was when I started,” Knox admitted. His voice held a dose of admiration that drove a spike of panic and wariness through my heart.
I could see where this was going and I didn’t like it. Knox was a creature of instinct—he always had been—and Selene ticked all his boxes. He might intellectually realize that getting involved with her was a bad idea, but the part of him that belonged to Cerberus wanted her anyway.
It would be my job to keep him from pursuing his impulses and preventing disaster. “That doesn’t change the situation, Knox. We need to stick to the plan and get her out of here, remember?”
“I remember.” Knox grimaced. “I just wish…”
He trailed off and shrugged, uncomfortable with finishing the sentence. He didn’t have to vocalize his thoughts anyway. They weren’t hard to guess, and I agreed with him.
Selene would’ve been a wonderful asset to the team, if she’d been a man. But she wasn’t, so she didn’t belong in Tartarus Base or at Chimera Academy. Sometimes, talent wasn’t enough.
“Sorry,” he said, having noticed my concern. “I’ll get her out of my system soon. It’s just the novelty that is getting to me. It’ll pass.”
I nodded, hoping he was right. We continued to watch Selene fly her chimera over the training field. August and Pollux were right behind her. Charybdis was catching up fast, her serpentine body deceptively quick despite its size.
I wondered what August’s take on all this was. He and Pollux had both agreed with my plan, just like I’d known they would, but I was sure they had their doubts regardless.
Pollux in particular had been hit hard, the situation reminding him far too much of his lost sister. Tartarus help us, we were trying to serve The Grand Judiciary properly, as was expected of us. Why couldn’t we get a break just once?
