Firebreak, p.2
Firebreak, page 2
Five sets of puzzled eyes lit on her. She cleared her throat, suddenly awkward. “Right. Sometimes I forget we’re all from different planets. None of you has Star Trek where you come from, do you?”
“We have Star Trick, but I don’t think that’s what you’re talking about,” Dalton said.
Colin looked up at him, curious. “What’s that about?”
“Oh, this alien chick with three boobs makes money by—”
Vail glared and jabbed Dalton’s ribs with her elbow. He caught himself.
“—by, uh, doing magic tricks at parties. And making balloon animals. It’s fun for the whole family, really. Totally wholesome.”
Colin slowly raised an eyebrow, looking from Vail to Dalton and back again.
“You know I’m only like a year younger than you, right?”
“Yes,” Dalton said, “but you are so very, tragically short.”
“Anyway,” Amy said, “it’s a test that one of the heroes has to take. And it’s designed to make you fail. There’s no actual way to win the Kobayashi Maru.”
“So what’s the point?” Bahati asked.
“The point is how you react to losing. It’s designed to test your character, not your skill.” Amy paused. “I mean, then Captain Kirk messed with the simulation so that he could win anyway, by cheating—”
Dalton pointed at her. “We should have done that. Next time we cheat.”
“I don’t think that’s really the takeaway,” Amy said.
“You can absorb your moral lessons, I’ll absorb mine.”
“Point being,” Amy said, looking to Colin, “We got thrown into the deep end. We sank, but only because we didn’t really know how to swim. That’s not a failure. The only failure is if we give up. And I think you did a pretty good job, all things considered.”
Dalton threw his arm around Colin’s shoulders. “You can be my wingman any time. Only thing you’re not allowed to do is give up.”
“I could offer some notes…” Olivia started to say.
Vail interrupted, deadpan. “Please don’t.”
“I mean, that ‘forty-five degrees’ thing? Who even knows what degrees are? That’s a measure of temperature, not distance!”
At least, Amy thought, everyone isn’t staring at me now.
“No, it’s like…” Bahati blinked at her. “Three hundred and sixty degrees in a circle. Like a clock? Do you not know how that works?”
Olivia wrinkled her nose at her. “I mean, duh, of course I know how clocks work. They tell time. Still isn’t going to tell me which direction to go in.”
“As much as I appreciate our magic-centered curriculum,” Amy muttered, “this school really needs to offer a remedial math class.”
Mr. Orris, the school’s groundskeeper, leaned out from the serving window and waved a leathery hand. “Grub’s up, kids! Line up and get those bellies filled.”
Amy was finally getting accustomed to the local cuisine. Not that much of it was local, outside of fresh-grown vegetables and the occasional deer Orris managed to tag in the forests of Firebreak Island. The dimension-rambling Racani came twice a year to host the Night Market and restock the school’s larders with canned goods and nonperishables acquired from the grocery stores of a dozen or more parallel Earths. The result was fare that tasted familiar but just two shades off.
Today, lunch was something sort of like a Cobb salad, made with crisp greens and diced tomatoes grown in Mr. Orris’s garden, a slightly too-sharp vinaigrette, potted meat that looked like chicken but tasted gamy, like goat, and a garnish like someone’s faint approximation, crafted from a faded memory, of what blue cheese should taste like. The combined flavor was rich, but everything lingered on Amy’s tongue a little longer than it should have, or tasted just a bit too airy, not quite real. She chewed thoughtfully.
“So I was talking to Anahera,” Bahati said. “Now that we’re second-years, we’re eligible for the Septs. They’ll probably start tapping people this week. I mean, if there’s anybody they have a yearning to recruit.”
She fluffed her hair as she said it, preening just a bit.
“Somebody already knows she’s getting an invitation,” Dalton said.
“I said nothing of the kind. But I mean, I am a worldwide pop sensation.”
“On a different world,” Olivia said.
“Which changes nothing. I bring the party wherever I go. So how about you all? Any aspirations?”
Colin’s lips pursed as he dug into his salad, glum again. Amy knew why. The Staves, the most reclusive Sept, considered themselves the backbone of the school. They worked with aspiring conductors, helped with administrative tasks, and kept the Saunders Academy running behind the scenes. Colin thought that would be a perfect job, something he could be proud of. After today’s performance, he was probably thinking they’d already written him off.
“Tricky,” Dalton said. “I mean, my skill set kinda lends itself to the Blades. Unfortunately…”
“Jerk club for jerks,” Amy said, spearing her salad with a fork.
He nodded in full agreement. “Jerk club for jerks. Maybe next year, after Jellica and her gang graduate, it’ll be a different story. Everybody knows I like to fight, and I wouldn’t mind learning a bag of new tricks. Just not if it means making nice with the White Witch.”
“Coins,” Amy said. “I’m hoping for the Coins.”
The Coins were travelers. They wore the mantle of scouts and explorers, manipulating the weave of interdimensional magic to cross the boundaries between worlds, discovering the secrets and wonders of the multiverse. From the day Amy learned that it was even possible, watching Professor Kamaka use his Navigator’s Tarot to open a literal door to another world, she had been in love with the notion.
“Think about it,” she said to Vail, squeezing her arm. “The places we could go. The things we could see.”
“Yeah,” Vail said, offering a noncommittal shrug. “I mean, sounds cool.”
Amy hesitated. “Is it…not actually cool? Because—”
“Hey.”
Vail turned slightly, her knee touching Amy’s under the table. Her hand found Amy’s there as well, fingers curling softly around hers and giving them a reassuring squeeze as the freckled girl gazed into Amy’s worried eyes.
“I’m not much of a joiner, you know that. But I’m happy doing what you’re doing. Long as we’re together, right?”
Amy reached up, her fingertips grazing the curve of Vail’s jaw.
“Get a room,” Olivia groaned.
Vail waved an open hand. “Plenty of open tables here, Liv! Sorry for spreading our big gay cooties and infecting you all.”
Olivia stared. “Wait. That’s…that’s not real, right? You can’t actually do that.”
Bahati met Amy’s eyes, slowly shaking her head.
“Remedial math,” she said, “is not the only extra class this school needs.”
***
After lunch, Amy caught up with Bahati near the spiral staircase that led to the upper dorms.
“I have a question,” she said, “and it’s none of my business.”
Bahati laughed. “Does that mean you’re going to ask, or not?”
A faint heat colored Amy’s cheeks. “I mean, if you feel like telling me to take a hike, I get it. It’s really not my place—”
Bahati reached out and poked her in the forehead, right between the eyes.
“Stop apologizing before you’ve actually said anything to apologize for. You know what your problem is? You overthink literally everything. Just ask, I don’t bite.”
Amy glanced behind her, making sure none of the Cups were in earshot. “Have you talked to Anahera yet? About…the other thing?”
Bahati’s eyes went dark. Her lips pursed, like she was chewing on something sour.
The Academy’s students had been selected from dozens upon dozens of parallel Earths. Bahati and Anahera, the leader of the Cups, were a rare pair: they came not only from the same world but the same city, though Anahera had been here for years now and Bahati was a fledgling, a relatively fresh arrival who’d landed with Amy and the rest of the second-years.
Meaning Anahera had only seen the beginnings of the tragedy Bahati’d had to survive. The rise of a fascist regime — and the destruction, by a dirty bomb, of the city they both used to call home. Anahera’s entire family lived there. Amy had no idea if they had survived, but the way Bahati described it, she figured the odds weren’t good.
“Not yet,” Bahati said. “I’m not hiding it from her, you know? I just…you don’t spring that on somebody. Gotta find the right time and place.”
Amy nodded. “I won’t say anything. When you’re ready, if you want someone around for support, just let me know, okay? I’ll be there.”
Bahati clasped her arm firmly and nodded.
“Y’know, I didn’t have many friends before I came here,” she said. “I had an entourage, and a whole bunch of people with their hands out looking for a free ride on my coattails, but not a lot of actual friends. Now I do, and it’s…it’s pretty nice. And you… You kept us all together last year. That counts for a lot.”
“Not all of us,” Amy said.
The Castaways were two members down. Nora, the youngest and smallest of them, had quickly been adopted as a sort of mascot…until Jellica and her pack bullied her into leaving, through the Arch of Resignation and out of their lives forever, banished to the world she came from. Erik hadn’t been one of the club, per se — more like an arrogant blowhard who had temporarily played the role of Olivia’s boyfriend and hung out with them — but even he didn’t deserve to go out the way he did. Tricked by a bogus spellbook, he’d melted to nothing before their horrified eyes.
Not one more, Amy told herself for the hundredth time. We survive together, we graduate together.
I’m not losing one more friend to this place.
Chapter three
The Saunders Academy was a nest of wonders, but the faculty lounge was so aggressively mundane it almost had to have been designed that way. Long shafts of afternoon light limned specks of dust across old wooden floorboards, the furniture was upholstered in faded olive vinyl, and a fifties-style hatrack stood beside the frosted glass door. A battered Mr. Coffee machine squatted next to a tarnished sink amid a clutter of mismatched mugs.
Professor Chalk leaned into his cane with both hands, disdaining the chairs. He usually did. Over a hundred magical duels had left his body a ravaged quilt of scars and half-healed fractures, chronic pain the price of his survival. Standing was easier on his tortured spine.
“I’ve assembled the data from the second-years’ prospective testing,” he said. “It is…as disappointing as I anticipated.”
Professor Mallory sat at the sofa’s edge, legs curled under her, a bohemian knit shawl over her shoulders. She cradled a steaming coffee mug, the porcelain decorated with painted vines and the words World’s Greatest Gardener. The crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes crinkled in distaste.
“Stupid practice, and we should discontinue it. I disagree about the value of using these trials as a character assessment. I worked hand in hand with these kids all last year. I know their character. Meanwhile, putting the Blades in charge of testing—”
“They’re our most field-tested and competent students.”
“They’re out of control, Abe. Jellica Barnes is out of control. You know this. How long before she seriously injures a student? Or worse? Amy Nettle has a scar on her shoulder from when Jellica decided to make an example out of her last year, and she would have done worse if you hadn’t been there to step in.”
Professor Kamaka sat in a chair opposite Mallory, practically dwarfing it under his massive, muscular frame. He rubbed his chin and nodded. His neck swirled with ocean-blue tribal tattoos.
“Gotta agree with Mal on this one. The new-bloods just graduated their first year here. Stuck it out, made the grade, and now we’re hitting ‘em with this? I’m not a big fan of the whole ‘break ‘em down to build ‘em back up again’ teaching style. Especially not now. You know. The current situation being what it is.”
The lounge door swung open. Chen Lan strode in, her feet so light they seemed to slide a fraction of an inch above the floorboards, with Professor Lanca on her heels. Lanca was young, handsome, curly-haired and bright-eyed, but his tweed jacket was askew and his cheeks bore a telltale stubble. He hadn’t been sleeping.
None of them had, really.
“On that note,” Chen Lan said, “we have a fresh problem. Lanca? Tell them.”
“Some equipment’s gone missing,” he said, turning to close and lock the staffroom door. “Bits and pieces, here and there. Mostly from the hands-on study lab and the astronomy room. Whoever took the stuff was careful not to grab too much from any one place, but I’ve just taken a complete inventory and there’s no question. We’ve been robbed.”
Kamaka’s brow furrowed. “What kinda stuff, specifically? We talking hazardous materials, something that could build a weapon?”
“No,” Lanca said, “but arguably just as bad. Here, look at the list of missing goods, and you tell me what you see.”
He unfurled a sheet of notepaper, a list of items stacked in a jittery hand, and passed it to Kamaka. As he read, Kamaka’s face slowly fell.
“Tillinghast Resonator,” he said.
“My thoughts exactly. You couldn’t complete a Resonator with this equipment alone — you’d need a lot more gear than this, and some cards to direct the energy output — but you could absolutely build the basis for one.”
Chalk’s dark gaze was fixed, unblinking, upon Lanca. “And…it was you who discovered the theft? Interesting. And convenient.”
Lanca wheeled on him, glaring.
“Hey. Stuff it, Chalk. I could have left with Elmer back at the Night Market if I wanted to. I could be gone, home free, back with the Network and this…thing out of my stomach. Off the leash. Did I? No. I stayed, I helped save those kids, and I took four fractured ribs while I was getting stomped by Elmer’s rat-monster in the process. If that’s not good enough to prove my loyalty, tell me what is.”
“You could die,” Chalk suggested, his voice murderously soft.
The headmistress stepped between them, fast, as Lanca took a menacing step toward Chalk.
“Enough,” she snapped. “Both of you. We don’t have time for this. And Professor Lanca is correct. Abraham, I know your misgivings, and I certainly don’t disagree, but this is neither the time nor the place. We need a united front right now. Lanca’s proved himself to my satisfaction which means, as I am your employer, he’s proved himself to your satisfaction. Am I understood?”
Chalk raised one hand, twirling his fingers in a ritual gesture from his homeland, before resting it back on his cane.
“It is as you say,” he replied, in a tone that said nothing of the kind.
“This doesn’t make sense,” Mallory said. “We know for a fact that Elmer and his rodent are stranded, cut off from any means of dimensional travel. If they weren’t, they would have already left and returned with an invasion fleet.”
“Hence the Resonator,” Lan said. “They want to call for help.”
“Except they’re in the wilds of Firebreak, and we’ve got a complete ring of pickets set up surrounding the Academy, my hut, and the school gardens. I tested those things myself. We all did, and we checked each other’s work. Anything bigger than a bobcat crossing the line sends up a warning signal. There’s no way, absolutely none, that Elmer is getting into the school, much less carrying out a theft right under our noses.”
“Which leaves one logical conclusion,” Chalk replied.
He didn’t have to say it out loud. They all understood. He said it anyway.
“Someone at the Saunders Academy, either someone in this room or a student, committed the theft. We have a traitor in our midst.” He looked to the headmistress. “We should search the dorms immediately.”
Kamaka raised a beefy hand. “Hold up, pard. Not disagreeing, but we should be subtle about this. For one, treat a kid like a criminal, criminal behavior’s what you get. We should do it while they’re at class. Subtle and quiet. If they didn’t steal anything, they don’t even need to know we were lookin’.”
“And we don’t need to give them advance warning,” Lanca added. “Like I said, the culprit went out of their way to take a little from here, a little from there, spreading out the thefts. If I hadn’t performed a full inventory, I wouldn’t have even noticed the full extent of the problem. Right now, they think they got away with it. I suggest letting them cling to that illusion, right up until we’re ready to catch them red-handed.”
“What do we even know about our uninvited guests?” Mallory asked.
“I did some digging,” Lanca offered. “Reached out to some old associates, people I sometimes sourced supplies and aid from…back in the day. Our main adversary is a sorcerer named Elmer Donaghy. He originally hails from Parallel Thirty-One, which is where the Network dug him up. Literally. Man’s a necromancer with a penchant for doing nasty things with dead bodies.”
Mallory lifted her eyebrows. “Thirty-One? That’s where we found Jellica Barnes.”
“And that hell-planet didn’t do either of them any favors. When the Network found Elmer, he was allegedly leading a death cult and wearing a three-piece suit made of human skin. They transferred him to one of the contested parallels and put him in charge of a major operation. Some nobody, a gutter-mage gangster, came and wrecked his whole scheme.” Lanca held up a finger. “The Network isn’t big on second chances, but somebody threw Elmer a bone. Apparently he just took a big demotion, and he’s been hunting for the Academy ever since, desperate to earn a feather in his cap and land back on top.”
“Making him even more dangerous now,” Chalk mused. “The Network grants second chances only rarely. It never grants thirds.”
“Couldn’t have said it better,” Lanca agreed with a nod. He hooked his thumbs in his belt loops. “If he goes back empty-handed…well, he’d have a better chance walking off the beach and straight into the ocean. The mermaids would kill him a lot faster and cleaner than his bosses will. And they like to play with their food. Man’s a cornered rat.”
