Si Vis Pacem Read online

  She snorts.

 

 

 

 

 

  She chuckles.

 

  She stops dead.

  I know I have to think one clear thought for her to read me properly, but my brain has turned to soup. I can practically hear half-formed sentences bubble up and get shut down when they reach my filters.

  She drops my arm and strides on. I try to catch up with her, wondering what the fuck just happened. When her back starts to shudder I think that she’s crying, which would be the weirdest thing today yet. Then she lets of a braying sound and I realize that she’s laughing. At me, presumably. Oh, well. At least she’s having fun.

  Once we get to the courtyard I manage to relax, too. At least a quarter of the student body is here, perhaps more, but I don’t find the crowd as oppressive. I’m not sure if it’s because we’re more spread out or because I am so much shorter than anyone else that I simply can’t see how many people I’m surrounded by. Either way, I don’t have such an urge to punch people, which is probably a good thing.

  That guy Reggie strides right past us. He doesn’t make any fuss at all, but somehow he makes the entire courtyard fall silent. When he’s standing right in the middle of us he stops, turns around once, scanning the crowd, then shakes his head almost imperceptibly. That pisses me off all over again: if we’re not good enough for him, that’s a failure on the part of the selection tests, not ours.

  I’m wondering how the fuck he’s going to teach the lot of us as he isn’t wearing a microphone, but as soon as he starts talking I realize that’s not going to be a problem: his voice is so loud it makes my ears ring.

  “You know why you’re here. This is your assessment. It will determine the working group you will be placed in. Do something, I don’t care what. Show me what you’ve got.”

  People start to mutter among themselves, but nobody does a damn thing. Reggie closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, opens his eyes again, and bellows, “Fucking get!” That’s when the whole herd erupts into action.

  Some of the guys start sprinting around the courtyard or doing calisthenics. Most run about trying to find people willing to go ninja with them; when they do, they pair up and start to beat the crap out of each other. The two other girls are wrestling, which stops the guys around them from doing anything much; they just stare and drool. I’m not entirely sure how this could be anyone’s jam, because the girls are being really vicious and grunting like pigs, but it clearly is.

  Dee and I are the only two people who’ve not moved yet. She looks down at me and sorta kinda smiles.

  “You want to get down and wrassle, honey?”

  “Oh hell no.”

  “Thank the gods for that.” Her smile improves significantly. “I like that medic guy well enough, but I’d rather not visit him in his official capacity.”

  “Dee, you’re literally twice my mass.”

  “That’s not the problem. The problem is that you’re literally half my mass. You’d take me out and not feel remotely bad about it.”

  “I don’t know. I can’t do any of the shit those guys are doing.”

  I’m looking around and some of the ninja stuff is really impressive. There seem to be various schools of thought on how to best beat the crap out of a person: some of the guys are pummeling the shit out of each other, some are wrestling, some are doing a combination of both. If I got in the middle of them, I’d be squashed flat.

  “Honey, most of them aren’t doing shit. Just look at them.”

  I take another look around, and she’s right. A largish proportion of the guys are just circling each other like dogs do when they have no real intention of actually fighting, occasionally making some hostile gesture but without ever making contact. The ones who are making contact seem to do so without actually causing each other any injuries, which puzzles the hell out of me.

  “It looks pretty impressive, though. They’re all threatening and shit.”

  “You look threatening just standing there. You look like if anyone tried any of that crap with you, you’d shoot them right in the face.”

  “With the blaster I don’t have?”

  “Your expression fails to convey your shortage of weaponry.”

  “Probably just to you, because you’re a wuss.”

  “I’m a lover, not a fighter.”

  “They’re not mutually exclusive, you know?”

  “Sure. You wanna do something? Reggie is coming round.”

  The guy is wandering about, checking out what everyone is doing. After staring at each gaggle for a few minutes, he speaks to them briefly and moves on. He doesn’t look happy, but I don’t know if his face is capable of performing that function. His blank stare looks etched in.

  I shrug at Dee. “Not overly. I’m happy as I am. You do you, though.”

  She does. She closes her eyes, gathers herself, and then starts to hum and dance to one of her favorite songs. She’s keeping perfect rhythm and wiggling her whole body right in my face, which I guess would be pleasant if that was my thing. It isn’t, though, and she knows it, which is why she’s doing it. I’m having to work so hard not to giggle it’s starting to hurt, and I know she knows that.

  I’m still racking my brain for something I could do when I see that Reggie has spotted us, so I don’t bother.

  “Dee? Incoming. You know we’re totally fucked, right?”

  She nods without missing a beat. “Yeah. Might as well go out in style.”

  Reggie stands by us, watching Dee go through a chorus and a verse, before nodding. “You move well. Any previous hand-to-hand training?

  She stops wiggling to answer him. She clearly takes him seriously.

  “Nope.”

  “Any fighting experience?”

  “Nope.”

  “Any experience taking a hit?”

  “I grew up with four older male cousins.”

  “That’ll do. And you…” he turns to look at me, and I hate that. I hate the way his cold, dead eyes seem to measure me. “You don’t move at all.”

  “Your instructions didn’t say we had to move.”

  “That’s how most people interpreted them, though.”

  “Yes. They did.”

  “I ask you to show me what you’ve got, and what you show me is a willful disinclination to follow implied instructions. Way to make a first impression, cadet.”

  “I can’t do any of what those guys are doing. I could try, but I’d be just pretending.”

  “No previous hand-to-hand training?”

  “None.”

  “What would you do if I attacked you right now?”

  “Make a run for it.”

  “My legs are longer than yours.”

  “Yes, but I can probably move faster through a crowd.”

  “What if I caught up with you?”

  “I’d scream my brains off and hope that one or more or those strapping guys would step in and save me.”

  “What if they didn’t?”

  He’s still staring at me with that impassive look of his. His irises are so dark they’re almost black, so they look like they are all pupil. It’s creepy as hell and it’s making me very, very angry.

  “Then I’d get fucked up.”

  “You’d just let me get on with it?”

  “It’s not a matter of letting you. You’re bigger than me and you’re trained. You’ve got all the advantage you need.”

  “So you’d just take a beating?”

  “Oh hell no. I’d make it cost you as much as I can.”

  “Why?”

  “Why not? That kind of thing should be expensive.”

  The tiniest o
f crinkles start to appear at the edge of his eyes.

  “Noted. Any experience taking a hit?”

  “Nah.”

  “How did you break your nose?”

  I rub a finger over the bump on the bridge of my nose before I can stop myself. I didn’t think it showed that much.

  “I didn’t. It was just a crack.”

  “How did you crack your nose, then?”

  “Got head-butted by a sheep.”

  He looks surprised, and the sudden change is almost as creepy as his normal blank expression.

  “How the hell did that come about?”

  “We had a disagreement of opinions.”

  “Did it hurt?”

  “Nah. It bled a bit. Mostly it pissed me off.”

  “Huh.” His face clams up again. “I take it the two of you will want to work together.”

  Dee steps forward and barges me out of the way. “Ideally.”

  “Fine. Your schedule will be published before the end of day.”

  We spend the rest of the class muttering rude and inappropriate comments about the rest of the student body, which is a tried-and-tested way for us to release tension. After that, we troop back to the lecture hall, where a singularly uncomfortable-looking guy in a tech coat gives us an introduction to the type of tech we are going to be playing with. It’s so interesting that even Dee pays attention.

  And that’s us done for the day. It’s too early for dinner, so we stroll through the hallways to find our room. It’s a four-person room, easily six times the size of the room Dee and I have been sharing for two years, but as soon as I walk in there, I feel claustrophobic.

  Dee sniffs. “Two guesses. Number one, we’ve been packed together with those two girls we saw.”

  “That’s a brilliant logical leap. I’m so proud of you right now.”

  “Number two, they don’t want us here. Look at how they have arranged their stuff.”

  “It does kinda feel as if we’re having to squeeze past their shit to get in, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes. It also very much feels as if they’ve already marked three quarters of this room as theirs. Hey ho; I don’t intend to spend much time in here with a whole bubble to explore.”

  We chuck our shit, such as it is, on the two spare bunks. They’re the ones over the ‘fresher and shower, which is less than ideal, but they are adjacent, which means that we’ll be able to ‘path through the partition. We test that before fucking off for a wander around the building.

  Accidentally-on-purpose, Dee’s route takes us past the med bay, where social chaos ensues again. Rody introduces us to Martyn, his supervisor and the Academy’s only medic, and the two other med assists, who are both called Ben. Then he proceeds to talk over everyone until it’s time to go for dinner.

  We sit together again, but not for long: Rody seems determined to introduce us to everyone who’s anyone. I give up trying to memorize names two persons in; I don’t know if any of them will ever be relevant to me, and I know that Dee is good for that, anyway.

  I’m already massively peopled out when Rody sends us back to our rooms to change so we can hit the town. There’s no way in hell I’d turn the offer down because Dee looks so happy at the prospect, but I am finding it hard to maintain even the pretense of joviality. Getting grunted at by our roommates in lieu of a welcome doesn’t improve my spirits, though it does encourage me to get the fuck out of their way. They are hard at work on their readers while we put on our best gear and flounce out the door.

  I have some reservations about the evening’s plans. Those two guys seemed happy enough to hang out with us in school, but I’m not sure they’ll be as keen to be seen out in public with us. On our trip over I did my best to work out the current symbology of clothing. None of that makes any sense to me, but I don’t think we can ignore it. Were it not important, people wouldn’t sink so many resources into it. Dee and I stick out enough because of how we look, so dressing to blend in is sensible, at least in theory. In practice, there is fuck-all we can do about it because we can only wear what we have, which is awful.

  As soon as the guys turn up, my worries evaporate: the demands of mainstream dress codes clearly do not affect them. Rody is wearing a floral shirt of the kind currently popular with elderly second-class ladies. For reasons entirely beyond my understanding, instead of looking like he stole his grandma’s laundry, he looks good enough to eat.

  Nate doesn’t. He looks like he needs a good dusting, if anything: his clothes are a jumbled assortment that looks just modern enough to be rejected by a museum, but way too old for human use. He’s wonderfully color-coordinated, though, provided one considers “faded” to be a color. He doesn’t seem to care; he looks eminently comfortable. He feels comfortable, too. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make up for the bowel-clenching fear that stepping out into the open drives through me.

  The bubble is going to fall down and crush us flat. I just know it. My body reminds me of that with every step. I am trying as hard as I can not to show it, but I can’t be doing that great a job. Nate flicks his smile on and off a few times, sidles up to me, and mumbles almost intelligibly, “It’s your first time hitting dirt, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah. Tuber born and bred. Dee was a grubber, though.”

  She feeds her arm through mine, making me feel instantly better about everything. “That was a long time ago, though. I am finding this a bit disconcerting.”

  Rody grabs her other arm without so much as a by-your leave and starts to reel off a list of information about the bubble we’re in: what is where, the places we want to check out, the areas to avoid, how to spot signs of trouble, and everything else he thinks we need to know, which is a lot. It all sounds like good, sound advice. It’s precisely the kind of stuff I aim to find out when I’m trying to orient myself in a new place. That annoys me beyond measure, and my annoyance annoys me even more. I don’t like the guy. I don’t want him to be useful, and it’s not just because I don’t want to owe him. I’ve got the feeling that he doesn’t play like that, that what he’s giving us comes with no strings attached. The real issue is that I don’t want him to be someone I can respect, and that is petty of me. It’s particularly petty because I want Dee to know this stuff. I want her to have the best time here she could possibly have and to be safe, and I just don’t have the information she needs to achieve those goals. I could take the time to work it all out – I will take that time, because I’m not going to just buy into anything anyone says without making my own mind about it – but, in the meanwhile, Rody is being a huge help. I hate that. I try to listen and memorize everything without letting him know that I’m paying attention. It’s remarkably easy, because he’s totally focused on Dee.

  Our first stop is what they call a café, where we get to choose between about a million kinds of hot drinks. Dee orders a tea, which turns out to be hot water with some dry vegetables in it, but you don’t get to eat the vegetables. It doesn’t make any sense to me, but it smells nice and Dee reckons that she likes it. I order bean water purely because it’s the only thing I recognize on the menu. When it arrives, I take a hesitant sip and I can’t believe my tongue: it tastes disgusting, as bitter as ash. I don’t understand why people would want to drink it and even less why they would pay a third-party to make some for them. I also don’t know what to do: the guys have bought it for me, with their own credit. I don’t want to insult them, so I can’t just leave it, but it’s so horrible that I really don’t want to drink it.

  Again, Nate seems to spot that I’m having issues. He smirks at me and slides his drink across the table. “Try this.”

  “Don’t!” sputters Rody. “He puts so much crap in his coffee it’s practically a dessert.”

  “Ignore him: he likes his coffee dark and twisted, like himself. Try mine. I know where it’s at.”

  He’s right: his drink is fantastic. Nate smiles at my reaction, sticks his tongue out at Rody, and proceeds to fiddle with my drink, adding various powders to it unti
l it’s turned from a bitter swill into the most wonderful drink I’ve ever tasted. I want to pace myself to make it last, but I just can’t. It disappears all too quickly. If it wasn’t so damn expensive I’d consider having another, but there is no way I’d ask the guys to front me for something this decadent. It’s just as well, because in no time at all I start to feel really jittery. I’d heard that beanwater does that to you, but knowing it and feeling it are very different things. It’s just as well that it’s time for us to move on, because I can’t keep still.

  We bounce down the cobbled streets until we reach a quieter part of town where, in a maze of narrow alleys, the guys stop at a door that looks just like any other door. Rody straightens Nate’s shirt before knocking. Two eyes appear through a narrow slit and moments later the door opens, disgorging sound and light onto the street. A very burly man with a very pretty smile waves us into the building and up a flight of stairs. As we go up, the music gets louder and the lights get dimmer.

  When we get to the top we find ourselves in a large, purple room. Literally everything here is purple: the lights, the walls, the low sofas, the serving area and the uniforms of the people standing behind it. Soft music fills the air, which smells wonderful. Everything is so beautiful that I wish I was anywhere but here: I am grubby, ugly, unkempt, and uncouth, and this isn’t my kind of place. It definitely is Dee’s, though. Her smile blossomed as soon as she walked in and she looks wonderful. The colors reflect against her skin and make her look even more dazzling than usual.

  The guys buy us two drinks – alcohol this time, and I don’t even bother pretending that I know what I want – but we’ve not even got to our seats when a beautiful lady comes up to us and asks Dee for a dance. Dee looks questioningly at Rody, who beams at her. She hands me her drink and the two of them go off to the far end of the room, where the music is loudest and the lights dimmest, to join a small group of people moving gently to the music. Within minutes the lady has her arms wrapped around Dee’s neck, looking up at her as if she were a goddess, which of course she is. It’s about time someone noticed.

  Nate and Rody elbow each other for a bit, mumbling furiously, until Rody turns to me.