by Paris Singer
“Seven? Wha—”
“I just felt like getting up earlier. What?”
“Dude, are you okay?” came Pi’s disbelieving voice as he stood slack-shouldered on the path.
Stepping forward and then turning to close the door, I smilingly replied, “Guess yesterday’s trip must have really taken it out of me. I crashed as soon as I got home and slept the whole night through.”
“I don’t think this has ever happened in all the time I’ve known you,” japed Iris, still looking astonished.
“Just trying to keep you both on your toes,” I joked as we started down the path toward the town.
I didn’t want to tell them that I’d barely slept that night, my mind troubled with One’s threat. Iris and Pi could more than take care of themselves. They were stronger than me, but I knew what One was capable of. The vindictive look I’d seen in his eye suggested a gleeful malevolence the likes of which was hidden behind his mask. As strong as my friends were, I just couldn’t take that chance.
“Looking forward to cooking class?” I asked Pi, wanting to change the subject.
“You know I am,” he replied, excitedly bobbing his rotund body up and down a couple of times. “Hope you’re ready to see the master at work, bro.” He winked.
“Always am.” I laughed, relieved the conversation had veered away from me.
“We’re on for Shabli’s later, yes?” Iris asked.
“Sorry, can’t today,” I replied.
“Oh?” asked Pi with an air of animated curiosity. “What do you have to do that could possibly be more important than Shabli’s? I know there’s no Sphere practice today.”
“Ha, ha,” I answered flatly. “I have an advanced Strategy class later.”
From time to time, I’d have extra-curricular Strategy lessons with Ms. Photuris. She’d approached me after the end of my very first class and had told me I had a natural talent she wanted to nurse and enhance, offering to personally teach me once in a while. The lessons took place in her office, which was more like an advanced, grander version of the classroom, only with a single four-dimensional screen that filled the entirety of the farthest part of the dark windowless, yet comfortable, room.
“Bummer,” stated Pi simply.
We reached the academy on time as groups of students filtered gradually in. As Iris headed off to her Quantum Physics class with a group of friends she’d spotted, Pi and I walked toward our Cooking class. The classroom was situated on the far right of the academy. The high-ceilinged room had long windows that stretched the length of the white walls, making it very bright inside as the light shone in. Each chrome workstation gleamed with cleanliness, and there was a certain clinical smell that permeated the air mixed with the perpetual aroma of the many dishes that had been created over time.
Each of the islands was spread over the middle of the classroom and had its own plasma burners and oven, a sink, and substantial work space to prep on.
Pi and I entered the large room to the sounds of Mr. Esca humming loudly to himself. He was doing various things on his own larger workstation, which ran most the length of the right wall. Behind him there was another slightly smaller station, which he used to teach us.
Like Pi, Mr. Esca was an Acedian. And like him, he was very laid back, except when it came to cooking. It was as though they both saved as much energy as possible throughout the day so they could release it all in one go once they were in the kitchen. Mr. Esca’s light brown hairy body—the upper half of which was covered by his habitual light blue chef’s coat—bobbed to the rhythm of his own song.
Pi and I chose one of the three islands at the front of the class and stood by it, facing the teacher. The look on Pi’s face as he regarded Mr. Esca was one of deep respect and admiration, much as if he looked at a celebrity. Aside from the fact he was my friend, partnering up with Pi had its obvious advantages. Not only was he the best cook in class, but he often gave me tips on how to tweak my dish to make it taste better.
Once everyone had arrived and stood by their islands, we waited patiently for Mr. Esca, who continued to bob along as he hummed. The quick rapping of steel on wood echoed around the room as he chopped and cut that day’s ingredients. Everyone who had him as their teacher knew Mr. Esca taught at his own pace and rhythm, so they just waited patiently until he was ready to start.
Suddenly, the chopping stopped and everyone simultaneously straightened their backs with expectation. Mr. Esca swung rapidly round on the spot, and shouted, “Open your mouths!” in his rough, casual, animated voice. As everyone obeyed, he threw little objects around the classroom, each landing inside the mouth of every student.
“What you are tasting there, mates,” he said as though chewing his words, “are wild fungos.” He cupped his big clawed hand around his mouth as if about to reveal a secret, and said, “Had ‘em delivered meself.” He winked as he smiled. “Now,” he continued, clapping his hands, “today’s dish, which will include the fungos, will be a Raihi. Can anyone tell me what that is and where it comes from?” he asked, looking around the room.
Pi, having already devoured the morsel, immediately put his hand up as he tried making eye contact with the teacher.
“Pi, my good friend,” bellowed Mr. Esca animatedly, approaching him and then throwing his arm over his shoulders, “how are ya today?”
You would have been forgiven for thinking that Mr. Esca and Pi were father and son, so much did they look alike. Aside from the long manes of hair that flowed down from either side of his face to his chest, and the equally hairy clump on his head that drooped partly down over his eyes, he and Pi were virtually identical.
“Good, sir. Thanks,” replied Pi, smiling sheepishly as he scratched his chin with a single claw.
“Well then, mate, enlighten us,” spoke the teacher, winking at him.
Raising his voice so the entire class could hear him, Pi recited, “Raihi is a dish made from oryza grains, Jacchu wine, ascolonia and alia bulbs, and drob stock. It comes from the planet Aris, in the Flos galaxy. It’s the traditional dish of the Rosa people.”
“Full marks. Well done, Pi!” exclaimed the teacher, walking away to stand in front of his own island, which stood directly in front of his workstation, so everyone could see him. “As Mr. 314 has rightly indicated, Raihi is an oryza dish, which means you’ll need to gradually add the wine and drob stock as you continuously stir. If you don’t, the oryza will quickly absorb the liquid, and the dish will be ruined. Everyone understand?” he asked, looking about him to nods and yeses.
“Good, then let’s begin.” Walking around to the other side of his island, he continued, “Now, as always, I’ve placed all the ingredients you’ll need under each of your islands. Place them on the counter and keep up. First,” he continued, “you’ll want to chop your alia and fungos so they more or less look like this.” Mr. Esca held up a piece of diced alia and fungo with the index and thumb of each hand for everyone to see. At once, we all placed both ingredients onto our boards and then began dicing them with the knives we’d retrieved from the drawer inside each of the islands.
Meanwhile, Mr. Esca turned to his workstation that ran along the wall and picked up several plates and bowls, inside which he had placed his prepared ingredients and then took them over to his island where he put them all neatly in a row.
After we had all finished chopping, he said, “Okay, now pick up a medium sauce pan from under your islands.” He reached down to pick up his own and then placed it on one of the two burners nearest to him. “Add a splash of baca oil inside it.
As the class progressed, we tried to follow Mr. Esca’s animated instructions as best we could.
Pi, however, was in his element as he emulated the teacher with almost perfect synchronization. His movements, like those of Mr. Esca, were akin to a dance—each movement so fluid and flawless they appeared choreographed. When Pi cooked, a metamorphosis occurred inside him where an unknown force took him over, casting a shadow over his eyes as though
his conscious self was no longer in control. When this happened, speaking with him became impossible as whatever machine inside cooked relentlessly on, chopping, slicing, and stirring.
Every once in a while he’d lean over and add a pinch or a sprinkle of something to whatever I was attempting to cook, stirring and tasting as he did so. As the room filled with smells ranging from the very sweet to the pungently acrid, I looked around to see a variety of dishes being served on-to plates. Some looked vaguely like Mr. Esca’s while others resembled the thick, dark bogs of Mergo.
His dish complete, Pi snapped out of whatever possessed him, and, leaning toward me, whispered, “Dude, check this out.” He pulled out a small, clear bag from inside the drawer in front of him, which contained an orange powder. Without waiting for my say so, he reached inside it and then sprinkled some of its contents into my pan. “It’s sapor,” he whispered, “it really brings out the flavour of wild fungos.” He smiled and winked, then sprinkled some inside his own pan.
“Won’t the teacher notice?” I asked, worrying slightly.
“You worry too much, bro,” replied Pi, raising an eyebrow as if I’d just asked the strangest of questions. In a sense, he was right. That hadn’t been the first time Pi had added some of his own ingredients to Mr. Esca’s recipes, each time either receiving an approving pat on the back or a sly wink from him. Whenever the time came for the teacher to taste my dish, he’d simply acknowledge it by saying, “Well done,” winking as he did so. It occasionally bothered me to think that Mr. Esca most likely thought the products of my culinary efforts were nothing more than mere replications of Pi’s own work. However, every time I tried to stop Pi from helping me, he continued doing so as if he were deaf to my pleas. On that day, though, I was secretly glad for his help. I felt exhausted from the previous night’s lack of sleep and found it increasingly more difficult to focus on what I was supposed to be doing.
Over time, I’d come to accept that I’d most likely never become a master chef, and that the artistic world of food preparation was probably best left to those, like Pi and Mr. Esca, whose talents lay in such things.
The teacher walked from island to island, tasting the results each student had produced, handing out varying degrees of verbal and physical criticism and praise. When it came to our island, Mr. Esca ambled straight to Pi and smilingly joked, “So, Mr. Pi, in what ways have you improved today’s dish, eh?”
Pi sheepishly scratched the underside of his jaw with one long nail as he smiled in return, and replied, “Just added a little sapor to it, sir.”
“Aah, sapor—of course!” exclaimed the teacher, throwing his arm around Pi’s shoulders again. “Why didn’t I think of that?” Looking over at me, Mr. Esca said, “Hold on to this bloke, mate. Friends like this don’t come around very often.”
Feeling slightly perplexed at his sudden, strange comment, I feigned a smile, and replied, “No, yes, of course, sir.” Standing there, they really did look like father and son.
After the lesson, Pi stayed behind to speak with Mr. Esca about what I guessed would be related to cooking, so I waited for him by the door. On their way out, several students, those whose eyes I could see, locked their gazes with mine. This tended not to surprise me as most either recognized me from Sphere or thought it unfair that I received constant help from Pi. What I found strange, however, was that they all seemed to be smiling at me as they filtered out. Not sarcastically or aggressively, but in what looked to me to be a genuine way. That having been the first time it’d happened, I wasn’t sure how to react so I began by smiling back at them the first few times, then lowered my eyes to awkwardly stare at the floor ahead of me until they’d all gone.
Moments after they’d all left, Pi walked over to me and casually asked, “Ready, bro?”
“The weirdest thing just happened!” I exclaimed, trying to keep my voice down.
When I’d told what had occurred as we walked down the hall, Pi predictably said, “It’s probably just in your head, dude.”
“No, Pi, it happened, and it was creepy.”
“Maybe they’re all just Sphere fans or something.” He yawned.
“Ah! So you admit it’s not just in my head?” I exclaimed triumphantly.
Stopping just before the corner at the end of the hall, Pi looked at me with eyes half-closed and simply replied, “No.” A smirk curling his lips at the sight of my evident frustration, he turned into the corner and away to his next class. “See ya later, bro,” he concluded, raising his hand, sounding as if he was suppressing laughter.
Heading across and down another hall, toward my Strategy class, my mind was torn. Part of me wanted to believe the students’ odd behaviour toward me was nothing more than an increase in my Sphere fan-base. The other part, however, found the succession of strange events that had occurred over the past couple of days hard to ignore. The bizarre incident on Brattea with the out-of-control Brattean monster, everyone’s behaviour toward the clearly dangerous situation, the sudden appearance of the mysterious girl, who seemed to be following me, and now this.
Not being a believer in coincidences, it was beginning to feel as though something outside my scope of understanding was happening. It was as though I stood on the palm of a vast, gigantic creature who observed me from far above, but I was simply too small to see it or understand. Though I realized I could be looking where there was nothing to see, something still itched at the back of my mind. I decided to put those thoughts aside for the time being, however, and focus instead on the long day that still lay ahead of me.
CHAPTER TEN
AS I WALKED DOWN the hall, other students ambled along, drifting in and out of rooms along the way. Perhaps shaken by the recent events, the atmosphere around me felt tense and heavy, as though a weight bore down on me. Following the stream of traffic, I glanced up at some of the passing students to see them gazing right at me, only to quickly look away when I spotted them.
What’s happening? I asked myself. Just as I was about to reach the Strategy classroom, something hard hit the back of my head, causing me to stumble forward into a couple of Syreni girls, who awkwardly smiled at me before speeding away.
The unpleasant, sharp voice of One sliced through my ears. “Watch where you’re going, Simian.”
I turned sharply, instant fury boiling inside my chest, as I faced One, who stood between the two Morex goons. Despite their greater number and collective strength, the combination of tiredness and frustration bypassed any conscious logic that would otherwise have prevented me from charging at them head-on. Without knowing exactly where it would land, I raised my fist and dashed purposefully toward them. They reeled slightly back in readiness.
Enough! The sharp, icy voice of Ms. Photuris blew in like a sweeping, glacial wind inside my mind, freezing us on the spot, and taking all traces of anger I’d felt with it.
I turned to see her standing by the door to the classroom, her slim arms folded in front of her with her face as cold and hard as stone. Ms. Photuris stood motionlessly, gazing at us through her large black eyes until the tension became too much to bear. We all simultaneously spouted the beginnings of sentences.
Get inside, she firmly commanded in a tone that was much more frightening than if she’d shouted. Without a word, One and I marched inside the classroom as the two goons went off to whatever lessons they had.
Once inside, One and I stepped behind our respective stations as the last of the students walked in and then Ms. Photuris closed the door behind her. As she glided gracefully toward her own larger one, the yellow-green light inside her glowed. Wiggling her antennae once again, her voice echoed inside my mind. Turn on your consoles, my children, instructed the teacher dryly, doing so to her own.
Just as we all followed her command, the illumination from above the room gradually dimmed and went out.
Today, continued Ms. Photuris, we shall begin the class by examining the strategies used by the Varvarin in the battle of Montetu. After a brief history of the inhab
itants and the political unrest that led to the battle, the teacher dissected the strengths and weaknesses of both sides, and explained why the final strategy had prevailed in the end. Now, affirmed the teacher, today you will face the student standing opposite you.
Despite the fact that most opponents were usually picked at random for practice battles, One and I tended to end up facing each other, so the teacher’s announcement came as little surprise. That day, more than most, hot sparks of excitement danced in my chest, and my heart beat faster at the thought of beating him as images of the previous night’s attack raced through my mind.
Once again, Ms. Photuris’ voice sounded in my mind as she said, Try to use the knowledge you have thus far acquired as you face each other, my children. Points will be awarded for strategy, ingenuity, and efficiency. Her fingers rapidly clicked on the surface of her station as she continued to look at us. Turn your attention to your screens where I have uploaded the simulation.
We all faced our screens to see the display as it zoomed in to the three-dimensional landscape until it stopped just above the two rival armies. This time, the land was flanked by a wide river to the left and a steep mountainous range on the right. Ahead, four side-by-side formations of vessels faced my equally positioned ships.
While I couldn’t see his eye, I knew One’s gaze fixed solidly on me, and I stared unblinkingly back, letting the growing rage inside me fill my very core.
You may begin, echoed Ms. Photuris’ voice.
Propelled by anger, the only thing that existed for me in that moment was One, his army and their total annihilation.
The battle raged, my side taking as much damage as his. I quickly realized anger clouded my judgement. I closed my eyes and let my surroundings, the past, the present, everything, fade quietly away until a great, still ocean of silence filled my mind.
I took deep breaths, letting the silent waves wash over me until I felt utterly at peace. As I opened my eyes and looked at the battle unfolding on the display screen, I saw everything as slowly and clearly as a moon’s amble across a starlit sky. Not only that, but I could now see the entire battle developing instantly in my mind, predicting every move and possible outcome from the many possible strategies that could be used. As soon as I was ready, I attacked, instantly mobilizing, changing, and merging units, moments before One could react or counter-attack.
