The Augenspire (Origins of Elaria Book 1)

by V. St. Clair

  Jessamine considered this carefully, lips pursed in a brief display of tension. Topher wanted to take her hand and assure her he wouldn’t allow anyone to hurt her or her family as long as he drew breath, but that would have been ridiculously inappropriate, so he maintained his silence.

  “You grew up near there, didn’t you?” Jessamine relaxed her mouth as she asked, and Gareth and Fox both smirked at this. They had both come from wealthy, influential families, like most of the Provo-Major: families who had the resources to pay for the training courses, tests, athletic instructors, and the surgery required to install the enhancers.

  While not poor, Topher’s father had been a common soldier and his mother worked in retail. They had no social or political clout and no high-ranking allies who could recommend Topher for advanced testing. He had taken a very different path to achieve his current position, and at his young age, most of the others resented him for his rapid advancement and scorned his low-level connections.

  “I grew up in that area, yes,” he admitted easily, since there was no point in hiding it. The Viceroy had always been aware of his origins and had never cared.

  “Sounds like you’re the best one to direct the investigation there,” Gareth put in with barely-concealed pleasure. It would be a nightmare to coordinate a sweep of all of downtown Silveria, complete with interviews, interrogations, and search warrants. He would have to take care not to be intrusive and risk agitating the people who lived and worked there, or it would only foment rebellion from people who currently had no axe to grind with the government.

  Serves me right for suggesting they target downtown, Topher sighed inwardly. No good deed goes unpunished.

  “If the Viceroy wishes it, I will of course lead the effort there,” he replied neutrally.

  Jessamine looked apologetic—she clearly hadn’t meant to volunteer him for more work—but the Viceroy nodded and said, “I wish it. I want a precise, coordinated effort; don’t ruffle too many feathers amongst the proletariat.”

  “Understood, Excellency,” Topher nodded acceptance and asked to be excused so he could get started. He knew who he would pick from among the Provo-Minor to get the job done and was eager to make contact with them.

  “Before you leave, I’d like a private word with you,” the Viceroy informed him, and the others took this as their dismissal and left the room with nothing more than a few backwards glances. Jessamine looked like she wanted to say something to him but refrained. When Topher and the Viceroy were alone and the door was shut once more, the latter said, “Someone betrays me.”

  Alarmed by the casual way he said this, all Topher could think to say was, “Excuse me?”

  Still looking perfectly calm, the Viceroy said, “I believe someone at the highest level of my government is working against me, and I want to find out who it is before they succeed in removing me, and discover why they have turned on me.”

  Five turns of the glass…

  Stunned by this information, Topher raised his eyebrows and asked, “Are you sure it’s someone inside the government, and do you think they’re only trying to remove you from power, or threaten your life?” He continued along this line of thought, rattled by the unexpected subject and by the apparent connection with the sentiments of the voice in his head. “If there really is someone in the Augenspire working against you, it would have to be someone who once supported you, not a plant of Hera’s, because all high-ranking officials go through dozens of psychological evaluations under the most powerful of truth-telling drugs in creation. No mole could get past all of that without revealing their intentions—”

  The Viceroy cut off his rambling and said, “I’m not entirely sure yet if they want me removed from power or eliminated entirely. As to the latter, I am aware of the implications of a mole within my own government. I have a short list and a long list of potential enemies,” he explained. “At present, you are at the top of my short list, in terms of who might stand to benefit from my sudden removal or death. So, Topher Augen,” the leader of the planet leveled his gaze at him coolly. “Are you trying to murder me?”

  3

  Risa Vorhees

  Risa returned to her dormitory in Building-3 after lunch to change clothing feeling thoroughly depressed. Little though she wanted to admit it to Ana, their lunch had done nothing but remind her of her unhappiness, and she had no idea how to cheer herself up now. It wasn’t just that Carl skipped out on them—though it was certainly part of it. She hated being reminded of the love she had lost, the childhood friend who was never coming back thanks to the Viceroy and his Provo, the reason she had involved herself in Hera’s plans to fight the government in the first place.

  She entered the Physman dormitory and trod through the lobby, past the brightly-colored flyers on the bulletin board advertising a government career fair for the Gifted. Two of her peers were standing in front of it discussing the pros and cons of interviewing for it.

  Risa felt no similar temptation, passing by them without a word and taking the elevator to the eleventh floor. In her mind, the Gifted who sold themselves to the government as weapons and consultants to be used against other Gifted were the worst kind of traitors in the world. She would rather die than become a sellout to her people, no matter what the pay and privilege for doing so.

  On the eleventh floor she walked the long, mostly-empty corridor, hating the beige walls that made the hall look even narrower than it was, giving the impression of its occupants being rats in a maze. She turned around a corner and continued past identical doors, numbered sequentially on either side of the hall until she finally reached her room. Her and her roommate’s names were on a small placard outside of the door, as required.

  She opened the unlocked door and was pleased to see she was alone for the moment. She had no desire to deal with her roommate, or anyone else, right now.

  At least something has gone right for me today.

  Standing in front of the mirror, she frowned at her carrot-orange hair, pulling it down out of its high pigtails and attempting to flatten out her natural curls without success. She was the kind of girl who would always be called “cute,” never beautiful. She would have killed for the smooth, rich red hair of the Vicerina, Jessamine, and her porcelain skin too. Even the Gifted boys who hated her family still spoke of her stunning beauty and their stupid fantasies of someday encountering her in the city and marrying into the Viceroyalty. Risa hated her even more than she hated the Viceroy himself, petty though it was to hold a grudge against someone she had never even met.

  Risa stripped down to her underwear and changed into more comfortable clothing before collapsing onto her bed face-up, closing her eyes for a rare moment of rest. It seemed no matter how long she laid in bed at night, she hardly ever got any sleep, and when she did it was rarely restful. She knew she would have to get up and moving soon, or she would be late for her afternoon lessons, but she couldn’t bring herself to rush for anything just now.

  Why do I even bother?

  There was something darkly appealing about the thought of just stopping everything and waiting for the Provo to come get her. It had happened before, of course. Sometimes one of the Gifted would become too despondent of their lives and would simply give up: eating, drinking, and attending classes all went by the wayside. Usually someone would notify a family member, who would come help pull them out of their funk, or a member of the Provo-Minor would come and take the person away for treatment if they thought there was some value in keeping them alive. Sometimes no one came at all, and the unfortunate Gifted was simply permitted to die there, friendless and alone.

  That would be my luck, Risa thought bitterly.

  Sometimes she didn’t even know why she went on. As a member of the Gifted, she only had two real options for her future: convince the government she was a useful asset and take a job with them, either in their army or as a consultant to the Provo-Minor. Risa knew the Provo had dozens—hundreds, maybe—of Gifted spies living in the Academy right n
ow, and had no idea who any of them were or what information they were gathering for the government. It made her inherently distrustful of new acquaintances.

  The other option was to apply for a normal job and commute to work every day in another part of the city, returning to the Academy at night and trying to live a normal existence in an area where she would be regarded as a freak and a liability. If she ever married, it would almost certainly be to another Gifted person; few normal people wanted to involve themselves with the baggage surrounding them. What was there to look forward to?

  Revenge, she mentally answered her own question.

  Revenge for the friend she had lost, for all the people who had lost loved ones to the Viceroy and his army in the war and ever since. The Gifted may not have started the Great War, but Risa was determined to finish it once and for all, and the only way to do that was to bring the Viceroy’s family to ruin in order to force them to change.

  The door to her room opened and closed, and Risa expected to see her roommate when she opened her eyes. Instead she saw two of her least favorite people in Physman standing in her room; they always found an excuse to bully her when they got a chance in classes, but they had never come to her bedroom before now; it was considered a gross violation of the little privacy they were afforded.

  She sat up abruptly and attempted to cover herself with a blanket out of reflex as she demanded to know what they were doing here.

  Harry and Paul both grinned like the small, mean idiots they were, and stepped closer.

  “Thought you’d get out of an interview with the Provo if you threw Will under the bus, did you?” the former asked angrily, eyeing her in a way that sickened her. She was still sitting on her bed in old gym clothes, half-wrapped in a sheet, too stunned to figure out what to do.

  “What are you talking about?” she demanded. “I didn’t say a word about Will or anyone else to the Provo. Get out of my room!”

  “That’s not what we heard,” Paul informed her, ignoring her demands. “Heard you told them about him sneaking out after curfew, and now they’ve got him locked up somewhere in deep interrogation.”

  Risa rolled her eyes in frustration. It wasn’t the first time she’d been accused of something she hadn’t done; it seemed to be how Paul and Harry justified their tormenting of her.

  “Anyone could have told the Provo about that; Will was stupid enough to brag to everyone he knew about avoiding curfew that night. And unless they’ve dragged him back to the Augenspire, he can hardly be in that ‘deep’ of an investigation; he’ll probably get off with a slap on the wrist and a few weeks of greater restrictions for balking at curfew.”

  Paul reached for her arm, but Risa activated her Gift and changed places with Harry, who was nearest the door. It happened instantaneously, with no sensation of movement: she was just suddenly in a different part of the room, facing the opposite direction, while Harry now sat on her bed.

  Risa had experimented extensively with her Gift and was accustomed to the abrupt change in perspective, but other people always found it extremely disorienting to be in a different place and facing a different direction than they expected between one moment and the next. She turned and made a break for the door, but unfortunately Paul hadn’t been affected by her translocation, so he was able to react to the change fast enough to grab her arm and jerk her backwards into the room. She stumbled over the sheet still wrapped around her and toppled to the floor.

  The sheet was twisted around her legs, which made Paul and Harry laugh meanly. Harry used his Gift on her and it felt like the force of gravity doubled against her body, knocking the wind out of her and pressing her more firmly against the floor. She tried lifting her limbs but they felt like lead, and she seethed with fury while the boys stood over her, laughing and taunting while her joints popped from the pressure on them.

  She blinked and switched places with Paul this time, gasping in a breath of air as she broke free of Harry’s Gift—which his friend was now suffering the effects of. She stumbled into the side of her dresser in her haste to get out and something fell and shattered from the top of it, though she didn’t have time to look at what had broken. Harry grabbed her by the hair and swung her around, fist drawn back as though to punch her in the face. Risa flinched and prepared for the blow, but suddenly Harry stumbled backwards and fell through a hole in the floor that hadn’t been there a moment ago.

  He released Risa as he fell and was able to catch himself, clinging onto the edge of the hole by his fingertips so his legs dangled into the room below. Someone down there shouted and took off running from the room, probably to summon help. Risa stomped on Harry’s fingers angrily, causing him to curse and let go of the floor, falling into the room below.

  Confused by the source of the hole in the ground, Risa whirled around at the sound of a meaty smacking noise just in time to see a third person in the room with her and Paul. Carl Vucanis was straddling Paul on the ground, punching him repeatedly and forcefully in the face until blood sprayed from the latter’s broken nose in a sickening aerosol.

  “Stop it, you’ll kill him!” Risa grabbed Carl’s arm to halt him, and the latter restrained himself at the last moment and climbed off of a twitching, moaning Paul to address her at last.

  “Are you alright?” his eyes searched Risa’s face carefully, looking for signs of injury. There were flecks of Paul’s blood on his face and clothing but he didn’t seem to notice.

  “I—yes, of course,” she stammered, her adrenaline petering out and leaving her even more tired than before. Her teeth were chattering, but not from cold.

  “Good,” Carl nodded curtly, turning away from her and dragging the groaning mess that was Paul out into the hallway and shutting the door on him, as though to say, “Out of sight, out of mind.”

  He walked over to the hole in the floor and grabbed the emblem of his necklace, which was shaped like a disintegrating cube. When he grabbed the emblem the floor began to repair itself, covering the hole as the wooden planks knit themselves rapidly back together. It looked like there had never been a hole there at all by the time he was finished.

  Next he leaned down and picked up the broken ceramic music box from the floor. A moment later it too was repaired, and he set it back in its place.

  “You—you beat Paul to a pulp,” she scolded him, nerves still frayed and teeth chattering.

  Carl turned his brown eyes on her and said, “I thought that’s what we were doing; was I not supposed to?” he looked genuinely curious, so far not mentioning the fact that Risa was still standing there in her old gym clothes with half her bedding on the floor.

  She grabbed the sheet off of the floor and tossed it carelessly onto her bed to prevent herself from tripping over it again. “What are you doing here?”

  “I thought I’d see how you fared with the Provo today, and if they gave you a rough time. I didn’t expect you to already be entertaining visitors when I arrived,” he added with an easy smile. His right hand was still smeared with blood from Paul’s face.

  “If you really cared how I was doing, you could have just come to lunch and asked,” she mumbled grumpily.

  “Well if I knew you were going to host a championship smack-down in your room immediately afterwards then I definitely would’ve been there to register properly.”

  Risa burst into tears, finally at the limit of what she could handle in one day. The last of her adrenaline abandoned her; she was cold, shaky, and sick of Paul and Harry picking on her all the time.

  Carl sat down gently beside her and said, “Are you crying because you told me to stop punching Paul and just realized what a horrible mistake that was?”

  Risa choked on a laugh and punched him in the arm, furious with him for being cheesy and making her laugh when she was trying to cry. Despite her dark mood, she was slightly cheered by his humor.

  She calmed down a few moments later, just as the door was thrown open by two security guards in uniform. Both were Gifted, employed by the Provo to
work at the Academy and help keep order if there were any fights or threats of violence.

  “Both of you, hands in the air and identify yourselves!”

  Risa did as she was told, though it was hard to resist the urge to frantically run around the room tidying up when there were strangers inside of it.

  It would be really great if guys stopped barging in here until I can change out of these old clothes and remake the bed.

  “Carl Vucanis, full-spectrum classical Deco-Reco,” Carl explained promptly.

  “You both know me,” Risa added, and the guards nodded curtly to her. Behind them, she could see a pair of medics strapping Paul onto a gurney and carrying him away.

  The guards were—understandably—more interested in Carl than in her right now. After all, she lived here and he was visiting from another part of the Academy. While not against the rules, it did make him an unknown element to them. It didn’t help that he was a full-spectrum Deco-Reco, which automatically put him under a higher level of scrutiny than most other people in the Academy.

  Everyone here had at least one ability, or they wouldn’t be Gifted, but most—like Risa—only had a single way to manifest it. She could physically switch places with anyone in her line of sight, but that was the extent of her power. About a quarter of the Gifted population had two or three different ways to manifest their abilities: an illusionist might be able to cause others to hallucinate and alter the way others perceive them, for instance.

  Only about five percent of the Gifted population could boast full-spectrum powers. In Carl’s case, he was an example of a “classical” Deco-Reco major; he could take things apart or put them back together at will—quite literally the meaning of ‘deconstruction’ and ‘reconstruction,’ whereas others in Deco-Reco could make chemical or molecular changes to the things around them. There had been much debate about whether he should be in Physman, since most of the time he was only making physical changes to the things he altered, like breaking the wooden floor and then putting it back together, but since he could also make some chemical changes occur with his powers and the name was otherwise confusing, they stuck him in Deco-Reco in the end. What made Carl unique was that his powers didn’t only work on one thing—they worked on almost everything.