ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-NINE: They Feasted

129
******

 

The chatter in the MPE building’s laundry room was energetic when Alden walked in with his gym suit over his arm.

“After we eat, we could all go do something at the mall together.”

“It’ll be late. We won’t even make it to the restaurant until after eight.”

“It’s Friday! Who cares if it’s late?”

“Marsha’s team is still in the gym. What do you think the faculty are doing with them?”

“They weren’t cohesive before, but that last run was too far, don’t you think? They completely broke down.”

“We could go to the cinema.”

“I’d rather shop. We have stipends now.”

“I already spent mine buying things for the dorm.”

Alden headed for a cleaning cabinet that Rebecca had just taken her own suit from. While he put the garment on the mannequin and hung the cuffs on the pegs, he listened to his classmates’ chatter. Even Febri and Shrike’s team, who’d suffered two losses today, didn’t seem too upset about it.

Olive was on the other side of the room grilling Haoyu about how he’d been able to tell her apart from her illusions, and Febri was trying to explain to Konstantin that the team had had a plan to make a statement about solidarity that had been ruined because of their defeat.

“We were going to almost win,” he explained, “and then we were going to have the last person refuse to cross the finish line. Because Søren isn’t here. It was going to be a gesture.”

“A gesture like that…” Kon rocked back and forth. “I see what you were going for, but that might make Søren feel uncomfortable?”

Sounds patronizing to me, too, thought Alden. But I guess Søren might appreciate the effort even if it’s misguided.

He shut the cabinet and leaned against it. It made a faint humming noise as the cycle started.

Instructor Klein had asked team Vandy/Marsha to stay behind after class instead of heading to the locker rooms with everyone else. He hadn’t said they were in trouble, but it didn’t seem likely that they were being held back for praise.

Upon hearing that her group was being singled out, Vandy had looked so appalled that if Alden hadn’t known what was going on he’d have assumed something earth-shattering had just happened.

He felt a little sorry for them, and he was glad he was here instead of in their shoes.

Officially the end of another week. Nothing to do tonight but take a bus ride down to F, eat dinner, and hang out.

His team had won. His skill had gotten a workout. And he’d just had a hot shower that he hadn’t needed to rush through. Some of the guys had decided the swimming tank was enough of a bath.

It would be almost perfect if Maricel hadn’t had to go.

He hoped whatever news she’d gotten wasn’t terrible. When the team had finished running the course, Fragment and the principal were both gone. It made him worry more, but they might have left for some other reason. Maybe they had last minute arrangements for the dinner or—

“Maricel!”

“Mari!”

“Are you all right?”

“Where’d you go?”

Some of the girls sitting on the benches by the door had spotted her first. Maricel had already changed out of her gym suit into a denim skirt and pink shirt.

“I’m good. I’m so sorry! A friend called, and they were in trouble so I had to—”

“A friend from home?”

“Are they okay?”

“Do you get to go back home to see them?”

“It’s all fine. I told Instructor Fragment. It’s taken care of.” She headed toward the nearest available cabinet while Everly and Tuyet told her all about what she’d just missed.

“Maricel!” Jeffy shouted. “We fed them to Victory!”

“Why do people on your team keep saying that?” Finlay asked Alden from the next cabinet over.

“I think it’s our motto now.”

Maricel looked over Everly’s shoulder toward him suddenly, and her dark brown eyes met his. Her smile was more strained than happy.

[Everything okay?] he texted her.

He expected her to say “yes” whether it was or not. She hadn’t been one to confide everything. Not since that first day they’d met, when she felt she’d said too much.

Sure enough, she nodded.

[We really missed you on the course.]

People were still calling out fight highlights to her; Alden’s name came up more than once.

“Alden killed Winston,” Haoyu said.

“He went for the throat.” Njeri sounded approving.

“Finlay, would that have killed you, too?” Jupiter asked. “Can we kill you that way?”

A lot of heads turned toward the Speed Brute.

“What are you all planning to kill me for!?” Finlay said. “And how should I know? Nobody’s ever tried to take my head off with a fishing line. We didn’t do that kind of thing at my old school.”

“They don’t train you for lethality during PE in Scotland?” Alden asked. “Imagine that.”

Finlay laughed.

<<It would kill him if he hit it like Winston did,>> Ignacio said. <<But he might not hit it like Winston did.>>

“That’s true,” Finlay agreed with a shrug. “My visual processing and reaction time are better than his. I also try not to go at top speed when I’m about to engage with someone. Liu Arielle says in battles she goes faster than a villain can understand, not faster than she can understand. Pushing it all the way is for getting to the fight in the first place, isn’t it? Or when you’re outmatched.”

“Do you like Arielle?” Haoyu asked. “She’s friends with my parents.”

“She’s my favorite,” said Finlay.

“Was she your favorite before or after she got her last few upgrades?” Febri asked. “Because she became a lot of peoples’ favorite once she started getting the special stuff.”

“Some Brutes think speedsters taking short range teleportation is unBrutely,” said Rebecca.

“That’s because those Brutes are jealous they haven’t reached the point where the System gives you the option.” Finlay was gesturing animatedly. “They all slack off on their training when they get old if you ask me. Liu Arielle’s kept up her leveling all this time. She’s going hyperbolic sooner or later. I believe in her. I believe in me! I’m going to get that same skill one day.”

Kon was walking around the room, touching random stuff lightly with his fingers and closing his eyes.

His object reading skill outlasted the spell impression that went with it by a significant amount. He was supposed to be burning both talents out every day, just like the rest of them, but since he never had opportunity in class, he spent a lot of time poking things throughout the day and psychically analyzing their recent history.

He pulled his hand away from the unused washing machine at the back of the room and looked around at Finlay. “I’m surprised you didn’t go to Li Jean. She teaches there every now and then, and I’m sure you could’ve gotten in.”

“I did get in. But they invited me to watch some classes, and I decided it would be hard to follow along with the System translations and do my best in their gym. Felt like I’d be stopping to read every other second.”

While the conversation continued around him, Alden composed a message to Jeremy, describing his gym victory. Jeremy had hinted a couple of times that Alden wasn’t going into enough detail about the superpowers when they talked, so he wrote more than he normally would have.

By the time he was done and his suit was clean, Team Vandy/Marsha had been freed from whatever lecture they’d gotten. None of them were speaking to each other, so if the subject of the talking to had been the importance of team unity, it had failed.

Mehdi looked like he was ready to hit someone. Max’s expression was completely unbothered and pleasant because he was a scary bastard, but somehow tension was still emanating from him like a poisonous gas. And as for Vandy, a couple of the girls said she was hiding in an empty classroom while she called her family and confessed to all her personal failings.

Winston was nowhere to be found.

Everyone with a sense of self-preservation left them to lick their wounds and get dressed by themselves. Alden vacated the building with most of the class, walking between Lexi and Haoyu as they headed toward the nearby street. The wind that had been blowing grit around the track earlier hadn’t let up any, and there was a distant grumble of thunder.

One of the Celena North buses was waiting for them.

Alden sat by Jeffy, with Lexi and Haoyu across the aisle and Everly and Kon in front of him. As the bus filled up, Kon suddenly leaned out of his seat to look up and down the aisle.

“Everyone’s in pairs. Are we going to make Vandy’s team all sit together in the back?”

“Ha!” said Reinhard. “That’s hilarious.”

“It is a little,” said Kon. “But they’re going to ruin our class dinner if they get any more…how they are.”

“I saved a seat for Mehdi!” Heloísa called from near the front of the bus.

Everly giggled.

“We should pick out seats for all of them to reduce their tension,” Haoyu said brightly. “Winston and Alden can sit together. And Jeffy and Marsha. And Tuyet—”

“Get an instructor!” Astrid shouted. “They’ve accidentally let someone evil into the program.”

“Yes, we need to kick Haoyu off the bus,” Alden agreed.

******

Just after eight o’clock, the bus put them all out at one of the side entrances for Rosa Grove mall. Despite a number of increasingly horrible seating arrangements being discussed, the class had opted for nonviolence in the end. Alden had gone to the back to save a seat for Max, who’d stared silently out the window the whole trip. It wasn’t a bad thing since it gave Alden time to get some homework done en route.

Mehdi had sat with Kon, while Everly had spent most of the trip trying to cheer up Vandy.

Marsha and Winston had ended up sitting together by default. He was pretending to sleep so that he didn’t have to talk to anyone. But unlike the rest of their team, Marsha seemed barely bothered by the scolding they’d received. According to Haoyu, who could see her tablet from his own seat, she spent the ride watching best-of Meister fights compilations.

Alden was one of the last people to leave the bus, and as he stepped off, he was surprised to find that Maricel had hung back instead of heading toward the mall with Tuyet. Curious, he dragged his feet a little. In response, she dragged her own feet a little. Since everybody else was eager to get to the promised meal, they ended up lingering outside after the group had run ahead.

This section of the mall’s exterior had large advertisements playing on the walls. An Avowed famous for mountain rescues stood on a peak in a raging storm while the camera slowly zoomed in to show that her makeup was flawless, despite the water sheeting off her face. Bright red lips smiled, and the words “still kissable” appeared beneath her chin. Then the glitzy commercial faded to be replaced by images of children studying in a language academy.

“What’s up?” asked Alden, blinking against the wind as he looked down at Maricel.

“Do you remember when I asked you about wizards changing our return destinations after a summons?”

To somewhere other than Anesidora.

“Yep,” he said, keeping his voice light even though his stomach clenched at the topic.

Maricel took a deep breath. “It was for somebody I met in intake. He still wants to leave. I wanted…I was trying to find a safe way for him to do it, so he wouldn’t choose a dangerous way again. I told him what I read online about escaping after a summons being possible and what you said about it probably being true. I thought he believed me. I thought I had convinced him to wait a while.”

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She sounded unhappy, but Alden couldn’t help feeling relieved that she hadn’t been asking for herself.

“The guy didn’t listen?” he guessed.

Maricel shook her head. “He sent me a message earlier. He said he had everything he needed ready. He said it was my last chance to go with him.”

Alden waited for her to continue.

“He’s going in a boat. It’s night. There’s rain coming, and the ocean’s very rough. Maybe that’s why he thinks the patrols won’t be able to find him this time.”

She’s worried.

“The authorities here do deal with stuff like this all the time,” Alden said. “And if you told somebody—”

“I told Instructor Fragment.” Maricel lowered her voice. “She and the principal stayed with me while we called someone from SkySea guard. They asked me a bunch of questions, but I don’t know anything. Only what I told you now.”

“Are you in trouble?”

“I don’t think so. But maybe I should be. I could’ve told someone earlier instead of trying to talk him out of it myself. They want me to keep trying to get in touch with him, so I text him every few minutes. But he stopped answering when he realized I wouldn’t go with him. If something happens…”

A trio of teenagers with non-Avowed tags stepped through the nearby doors. They shrieked as the wind almost stole the large pizza box from one girl’s hands, then they all started laughing about it.

“He’ll be fine,” said Alden. “There’s no way this is the first time someone’s tried to use rough weather to slip past the patrols. It probably happens weekly.”

“Fragment said the same thing. And the man who interviewed me didn’t seem worried, but—”

“Plus there’s always ETing.” Alden remembered Lexi telling Kon exactly that about his rough-seas boat trip to Matadero the day of the party. “If your friend capsizes, or if he gets lost, that’s always an option.”

She made a face. “I know. And thinking about it that way makes me wonder if I was wrong to tell on him. What if he could have made it? And been happy? But because of me, he’ll get caught.”

<<Most people don’t have a translation in front of their eyes,>> said the advertisement on the wall. <<Make sure your children can talk to the world.>>

“This isn’t the first time he’s run. They’ll put a lot of restrictions on him when they bring him back,” Maricel went on. “He’ll hate me forever. I…this is what I wanted to ask you. Once he’s back, if he doesn’t mind, will you try talking to him for me?”

“Why me?” Alden had wondered the last time she’d questioned him about escaping via summons. She seemed to think he had more insight to offer than he did. “I’m not an authority on getting off the island or being summoned or anything. There are much better people to—”

“You’re one of us,” Maricel said, taking a step closer to him. “A globie. That really matters to him. And you don’t hate it here, but you don’t think other people are stupid or crazy if they do. You’re a nice person. And you know summoners even though you’re our age. There aren’t any other people like that at all. Maybe he’ll listen to you.”

I guess if that specific combination of qualities is her criteria there aren’t a lot of matches.

“I mean…I’m willing to try I guess. No promises on my success at reasoning with anyone.”

“Thank you.” Her shoulders slumped and she let out a long breath. “You’re a better friend than I am. I’m sorry. I’ll try not to be so much trouble to you—”

“We’re good,” said Alden. “I’ve thought you were cool ever since you went off on those assholes who were like, ‘Ew…a Rabbit’ and declared your intention to run across a planet to get back home.”

She looked pained. “That’s really not who I am most of the time.”

“I get that. It was a bad day for you. You were still cool. Now stop worrying. Let the professionals handle the problem. And take me to eat.”

******