Sirius Academy (Jezebel's Ladder) (9 page)

“He doesn’t care about that, as
long as it’s not in front of other students. No, I insulted his sacred
professor.”

“It ain’t cool to pick on an old
cripple, chica.”

“That old cripple can take care of
himself better than half the mils in this place.”

“What, you think Z is sweet on the
guy? Is Sorenson gay?”

“No. Sorenson’s violently het, I’m
told,” Red explained, touching up her hair.

Someone knocked at the door. Red
barked, “Front camera: on.”

They could see Sojiro on the TV, shuffling
nervously at the door. “Lock: open,” Risa said. When he pushed the door open,
she said, “Whassup, boyfriend?”

The Japanese student stepped in,
closing the door behind him. “Hey, chica bonita. I just came by to drop off a
copy of my first episode.”

Risa cooed encouragingly over the
miniature manga. “This is so cool. You so nailed her with this. Look, Red,
you’re a robot killer.”

Sojiro leaned over to peek into the
bedroom. “I’m trying to decide how to portray the demerit in the fantasy world.
I’m thinking . . . whoa, you dye your hair?”

Red kicked the bedroom door shut.
“Pervert. You know I dye it, a different color every day.”

He leaned close to the door.
“That’s washable. You’re making it brown. I thought all the women wanted to be
blonde.”

Risa said, “At least tell her not
to go disrespecting teachers in front of other teachers.”

“No way,” said Sojiro. “She’s my
hero. Literally, I get half my plot threads from you now. Besides, I wish I had
the balls to talk back to Horvath like she does. I’d get pistol whipped.”

“I think Grunt-Monkey likes it when
she does that demonstration thing on him,” Risa whispered.

“Oh, like you wouldn’t let Herk do
a takedown on you?” meowed the artist.

She snickered. “That’s different.”

“That girl down in room three was
asking Herk to help her move furniture the other day,” Sojiro began.

Red opened the door. She came out
in baggy, urban-camouflage pants, T-shirt, and a tan photographer’s cargo vest.
“Don’t. He’s lying to get you riled.”

Risa glared and the Japanese
student said, “You’re calling me a liar?”

“You’re not denying it,” Red
countered.

“But I’m allowed to take offense if
you
call
me a liar.”

“How do you do that?” the Latina asked her roommate.

“Please don’t tell anybody I’m
blonde. It’ll ruin my image,” Red begged, ignoring the question.

Sojiro laughed. “I kept the
princess nightgown a secret. The mils would leave me alone for a year for that
tidbit.”

“What do you think of my new look?”
Red asked. Her hair was its familiar brown with no streaks.

“Add the right hat and you could be
on an elephant hunt,” he said.

“Or Crocodile Dundee,” said Risa.

“I love that movie,” squealed the Japanese
man. “We have to get together for movie night sometime. Everyone brings their
favorite DVD and a snack.”

“Enough about you, Red,” Risa
complained. “Look at this gorgeous artwork.”

Red accepted the black-and-white
manga from her roommate and nodded. “You’re a visionary, boy.” Opening to the
first page, she read, “The city had forgotten what it was made for. What was
once a launch pad had become a prison.” Flipping through the pages, she
deduced, “That’s a metaphor for this island!”

Sojiro pointed. “That’s why I would
never sell you out, girl. You get it. And better still, you want to change it.
You can’t buy that.”

“BFFs,” said the short girl in BDUs
that were too big for her. “What did you really come by for? You can tell us.”

He traced the carpet with his boot.
“I was hoping I could get you to show me a few moves with the paint guns. We
have another exercise tomorrow for anti-terrorism, and I really suck. What do
you say? Please? I’ll give you a shiatsu back massage.”

Red shook her head. “I’m booked
solid. Besides I’m more the grenade and artillery person. You want Herk for close-order
drill.”

“I think I might need some
practice, too,” Risa chimed in.

“Call him with the massage offer
and throw in the rest of my ice cream and a new set of wire-strippers. He’ll do
it for just the massage and share the ice cream,” Red predicted. “If you ladies
will excuse me, I have a lecture to attend.”

Saturday morning, over breakfast at the cafeteria, Red met
with her usual club, plus Toby from Extreme Environments and a physician called
Auckland. That’s where he was from, technically, but no one could pronounce
his Maori name.

Red announced, “I’ve called you all
together because it’s time we struck back against the Platinum Punisher.” Nobody
laughed because the girl was wearing black, her
serious
color.

When the doctor went, “Who?” Sojiro
flashed him the sketch of Trina in leather. “Oh, count me in, mate. I didn’t go
through five years of school and months of screening for abject humiliation.”

“Exactly,” said Red. “Today’s drill
is the perfect opportunity to get revenge.”

“But this is an emergency medical-response
drill,” Auckland protested. “We’ve been practicing first aid and building
emergency shelters all week”

Red raised a finger. “You have been
practicing first aid. I’ve been studying the enemy. The drill is set in the
storage tunnels. While we’re responding to the gas attack in the simulated
subway, Horvath is going to hit us with a terrorist team.”

“That’s against the Geneva
Convention,” Auckland objected. Everyone else stared at him. “Right. I see your
point. Terrorists don’t follow the rules. That’s just the sort of idealism this
class is designed to beat out of me. But winning against Frau Horvath is rarer
than a red-headed Muslim.”

“I actually saw one of those at the
mosque in Regent’s Park,” said Herk, amused.

“Hey, I just noticed, Herk: your
English is a
lot
smoother,” Red announced looking at her roommate for
confirmation.

“Oops. Sometimes I slip,” the bomb
tech admitted. Switching to the thicker accent, he said, “It is easier when
people believe I am smart like tractor.”

“A blond Chinaman?” tried Auckland.

“Seen it,” said Risa, pointing
across the room at one of Kaguya Mori’s groupies.

“Well, I’m fresh out of offensive
racial aphorisms,” the doctor admitted. “What’s the plan?”

“She’s going to shoot you first,”
Red said to the doctor.

“Fantastic,” said Auckland.

“That’s to demoralize the students
and make sure no one gets proper treatment. Nothing personal,” explained Herk.

“The point is,” Red whispered, “my
goggles can see through the fog, and I can nail them.” She shaded the truth on
that. Her hidden Empathy and Collective Unconscious skills would pinpoint the
agents long before that. “But according to the rules, I can’t fire until they
do.”

“They might just be out for a
morning stroll with AK-47s and gas masks,” quipped Sojiro.

“Precisely. Auckland, I need you to
stay as far away from me as possible, and use cover for as long as you can
while the rest of us get into position.”

“Should I make a big death scene,
cause a distraction?” he offered.

“No. Who was the best assistant
during the first aid training?”

“Toby.”

The botanist replied, “Thanks. I specialized
in organic chemistry, but I haven’t had much field experience.”

Turning to Toby, she said, “I need
you to grab as many superglue field patches as you can. Grunt-Monkey is the
referee. He’s loyal but fair. If some of us get winged, slapping on one of
those bandages will let us keep going.”

“Roger.”

“We can do that?” asked Sojiro.

Herk shrugged. “In our class,
anything you bring with you into the field is fair game. She won’t disallow.”

Red continued, “That means
everyone
brings a bottle of water and a cloth for tying over your face. She’ll use
actual tear gas to make it harder. Auckland, we need you to give your supplies
to someone before you’re hit, in case it’s a grenade. Make it look casual.”

“It’s a twenty-kilo pack, mate.”

“Even better,” Red said. “Turn your
back down the tunnel when we’re ready, and then take your pack off. She’ll try
to make an example of that easy target. Wear extra padding so it doesn’t hurt.”

“Very Sun-Tzu,” Auckland admitted.

“Everyone be ready to dive for
cover and draw when you hear my grenade launcher thump.”

“Grenade launcher?”

“I flew to shore to pick it up
early this morning,” the girl in the big-game hunter’s outfit said with a grin.
“It lobs water balloons fifty yards. We can fill the balloons with paint
instead—a bit messy, but when you’re making omelets you have to break a few
eggs.”

“What about me?” asked Sojiro.
“I’ve been practicing with the rifle.”

“Hang back, act scared, and don’t
let me out of your sight. Horvath will come gunning for me as soon as I ruin
her exercise. I’ll run for the boundaries and try to get myself declared
out-of-bounds, but she’ll be on me like a soccer fan on free beer.”

Everyone looked at the Maori doctor.
“Not offended. It’s the winning side that gets it for free, after all. You’ve
actually made me thirsty. I think I’ll bring a bit of brew to keep me company
as a deceased spectator.”

To Sojiro, she said, “I’ve saved
the best for last. Just as she comes in to finish me with her pistol, or the
theater dagger she carries that squirts blood, you peg her with the rifle.”

“So this is all to piss her off enough
to come out in the open?” asked Risa.

“Yup,” Red chuckled.

****

As they gathered their equipment,
the temperature outside reached ninety. Red and Auckland both wore thick Kevlar
vests under their normal gear, knowing how much the fake bullets could hurt.
Red carried as much paint as she could for the battle.

Overnight, Horvath had turned off
the air conditioning in the tunnels, making them stifling. Only a few LED
strips lit the ceiling. “This is an oven,” complained Sojiro.

“Radio silence,” hissed Red,
already sweating.

They crept down the dark stairs,
afraid that the enemy could spring out at any moment. According to Herk,
watching from the library roof with binoculars, the first group of twenty students
had lasted only three minutes.

Success would make Trina cocky,
thought Red, grinning like a fox.

She took the lead from the beginning,
with support from the others from her club. “Two columns, each one takes a
side. Put one of your hands on the wall and the other on the man in front of
you—baby elephant style.” Letting her extra senses expand out, she led her team
into the fog.

Red muttered corrections to her
people and had them fan out into the wisp-filled mock subway station. “Auckland, your team gets the train wreck. Sojiro and I fly cover, the rest of you start triage
at the turnstiles. Olivetti, splice secondary communications into that cable
there.”

She’d do it by the numbers, until
it wasn’t.

She sensed people crouched at both
ends of the tunnel. Seven bodies per side, one was a judge. Trina was on the
hubward side of the spoke. Red’s heart was racing. It was going to be a
massacre unless she evened the odds. Over the radio, she said, “Auckland, give us your Shatner impressions.”

“You mean McCoy?” the doctor asked.

“Whatever, just do it soon,” she
coughed. Sweat dripped into her eyes and the smoke stung, despite their
makeshift masks. “Back to back,” she whispered to Sojiro. “Full auto-fire.”

Sojiro was breathing faster than a
puppy bringing back a toy. “I can’t feel my fingers.”

She tongued her mike to open
broadcast and waited.

Red watched Auckland take his pack
off in slow motion and hand it to the man behind him. The instant that the
soldier stepped clear, six laser sights lit the doctor’s back.

When the shots ripped through the haze
into the train area, Red crouched behind the cement trash can and lobbed three grenades
into the support arch above the enemy team that had fired. “Judgment!” she
bellowed over the PA.

“Hold!” called Grunt-Monkey over
the same channel. Shots stopped and people froze in place, locked in that
horrible moment of ambush. The extra time would clear the air but clog their
lungs. “Speak.”

“The aft team is neutralized. I
just collapsed that tunnel.”

The judges shone flashlights and
crunched numbers. Eventually it came down to gut adjudication. The Seal with
the grenade-riddled team announced. “One survivor for aft attackers. Total loss
for train defenders. Turnstile triage team at fifty percent.” They threw flags
to denote the injured and dead.

“Resume.”

“Retreat!” Red ordered, momentarily
forgetting to switch off the PA. She reloaded and lobbed more grenades,
covering her team’s extraction. One ex-marine student got shot in the back
while carrying an injured comrade. Three of the freshmen made it to daylight—Red,
Toby, and Sojiro. Toby had emptied his pistol but the artist had almost a full
clip.

They were in the quad where people
played Frisbee. Switching channels, she called to Herk, “Report.”

“They’re pouring out the airport
tunnel. Sniper on the dome. Get to cover (pthut). Damn, that’s going to stain.”
The channel ended in static.

“Run!” Red shouted.

Taking out her sidearm, Red tossed
it to Toby. The judge was struggling to keep up with them, spouting a stream of
constant commentary into his logging device. Without realizing, she’d led the
group back to the cafeteria where they’d planned the trap.

Once through the door, she flipped
a lunch table over as a barricade. “Hold them,” she told Toby. Around the
corner, she boosted Sojiro up onto the exposed, cement-covered crossbeam.

Red ran to the cashier. Students
scattered to the sides, excited to watch, but afraid to get hit.

Toby took one more with him before
taking an arm hit. He patched it with a Superglue kit, spilling five other
bandages over the floor as he did so. “Toby, one o’clock, two meters,” she
called out.

The botanist popped back up in time
to shoot an enemy in the gas mask at point blank. That would hold the other
attackers for a while.

Red calmed her breathing. She suddenly
noticed Uncle Daniel standing disembodied across the room. He had to be
spotting for Trina; they were a team. Extending, she could feel a blazing light
of talent sneaking up from the women’s room. Rolling, Red squeezed off her last
shot from three meters away before her opponent could register the weapon. Ms.
Mori, the queen bee, shrieked, “You’ve ruined my outfit! It was a Scheinfeld
original. Arggh!”

“Civilian casualty. Disqualified,”
stated Grunt-Monkey.

Toby dropped his borrowed pistol
and raised his hands. “Out!”

Trina strolled up behind Red,
creeping in from the kitchen. “Pity,” she said. “I was almost in range.”

From eleven meters away, just
outside her detection range, Sojiro pulled the trigger on auto-fire. “No!” Red
shouted, too late. The judge hadn’t specified, but the whole team had been
disqualified by the act.

As Trina turned to draw her real
sidearm at the clicking noise, a barrage of thirty blue paintballs stitched
across her chest. She had no vest, and the chest pain radiated out from her to
everyone with a link to collective unconscious. It hurt so bad that tears
leaked from both Red and the fashionable Kaguya.

The annoyingly perfect Mori was an
unregistered psi. Red was reminded of one of her dad’s favorite expressions—it
was hard to cheat right with all these damn liars around here.

Red started to giggle
uncontrollably.

Sojiro, Toby, and the judges rushed
over to administer first aid, but there was nothing for them to do.

****

Zeiss barely got Daniel to the
dean’s office before the ladies were released from the clinic. Dean Stanton
fumed, “She’s a menace. One week here and she’s earned a suspension, that’s a
record.”

Mr. Rogers, there to represent the
mils, snorted.

“Relax, Ted,” Daniel said. “From
what I understand, Red didn’t actually break any rules.”

“Other than shooting a celebrity
here on scholarship.”

“I watched Out of Body. The Mori
girl was another unregistered active sneaking up on her. Red probably thought
it was Professor Horvath.”

“Unregistered?” demanded Rogers. “You didn’t mention this before?”

“I didn’t think it was relevant.
Her mother was a Fortune bodyguard with Collective Unconscious and Simplification
talents applied to martial arts. She turned nymphomaniac and slept her way
through half the London office. Elias changed her call sign to Bermuda
Triangle.”

The former Seal guessed, “People
disappeared after she slept with them?”

“Figuratively speaking,” Professor
Sorenson explained. “She infected men with her pages about one time in ten and
made a few into multiples. The multiples had trouble staying balanced; we lost
a few. Even so, Elias didn’t cashier her until she got pregnant. She went to
work for a Japanese billionaire who appreciated her unique combination of talents.
The child inherited her mother’s pages, which explains why Miss Mori is so good
with voice sculpting.”

“And the forbidden fruit doesn’t
fall far from the tree,” said the dean. “In spite of repeated warnings, our
best Quantum Computer last year washed out after sleeping with her.”

“Navel staring?” asked Rogers.

“We could cure him of that,” said
Daniel. “Unfortunately, he reached three talents, exceeding the UN limit.
That’s when we forced her to get a biohazard tattoo like mine. Of course, the
moment
she
got one, it became fashionable.”

“Back to the problem at hand,
please. They’re going to kill each other, and I’ll be blamed,” moaned the dean.
“How do we punish Miss Benson? She has to learn her place.”

“Her landing on another island was
unauthorized,” the former Seal noted. “We can clip her wings for a month.
She’ll feel that.”

Daniel nodded.

“But how do we let everyone else
know she’s in a world of shit?” asked the dean. “More importantly, how do I appease
Horvath?”