The Far Shores (The Central Series) (21 page)

Alex wavered.

“I don’t know. I keep
thinking that maybe I should come clean on all of this.”

Katya groaned.

“Exactly the pick-me-up
every girl dreams of when she is down. Don’t get me wrong, Alex,” Katya said
firmly. “I think you should be honest in the future. But no girl wants to hear
that sort of thing when she is already feeling insecure and unhappy.
Pro-boyfriend-tip.”

“Ah. Right.”

Alex continued to stare
at his juice, unable to even formulate questions. Katya sighed, then rested her
forehead briefly on the table.

“Okay,” Katya said,
sitting up and sipping her latte. “I am going to do you a big favor, Alex. Gonna
give you a valuable female perspective on the issue. You know what a girl
generally likes in a relationship?”

“Um,” Alex hedged,
wiping sweaty palms on the thighs of his jeans. “Uh, I don’t know. Flowers?”

“Dates, Alex,” Katya
said, clearly exasperated. “Generally, part of dating involves
actually
going on a date
occasionally. You get me?”

Alex nodded enthusiastically.

“You think I should take
Eerie on a date.”

Katya applauded.

“Exactly.”

Alex’s smile lasted only
as long as it took him to realize that he had a few more questions.

“Um, then, what kind of
thing...”

“I don’t know what that
girl sees in you. What kind of thing do you do on a date? Something like what
we are doing right now, you moron.”

Alex absentmindedly
started peeling the label from his mostly full juice.

“I should take Eerie to
get coffee, then? Here?”

Katya finished her
latte, and then wiped the foam from the tip of her nose.

“You are just fucking
with me, right?”

Alex tried his best, but
the smile came naturally.

“Yeah. A little. I’m not
quite that dense, but I really don’t have any idea where to take her. Can I
even leave Central?”

“Of course,” Katya said,
clearly surprised. “You aren’t a prisoner. You can leave the Academy whenever
you want, provided that you inform Administration and can arrange for your own
transport.”

“Ah.”

Katya grinned while she
stole his apple juice from him.

“Your own transport. You
catch that part?”

“Aha.”

“Which you don’t have.”

“Yeah. Do you think I
could take her somewhere in Central?”

Katya rolled her eyes.

“Yeah. Lots of romantic
places to take a girl. Particularly since Eerie lived here since she was a kid.”

“You may have a point,”
Alex allowed. “But, where...”

“Alex, what does she
like to do?”

“Huh?”

“Eerie. The girl in
question. What does she like to do?”

Alex’s brow immediately
broke out in a sweat, as if he had just been handed a pop quiz.

“Um...sewing! She likes
to sew!”

“Actually, she generally
knits, but I guess that is sort of close,” Katya allowed, swirling the apple
juice in the plastic bottle. “Are you gonna take her sewing?”

“Well, no.”

“Yeah, I figured. Try
again.”

Alex racked his brain,
feeling more than a little guilty at his own ignorance. He wondered if he had
ever asked Eerie what she liked to do, or even wondered before Katya started her
interrogation. Alex started to suspect that he wasn’t a very good boyfriend.
Assuming that’s what he was.

“Dancing? We went to
that rave thing...”

Katya reached across the
table to poke him in the forehead.

“Do you wanna dance?
Because you cannot ask her to go dancing and then refuse to dance.”

Alex grimaced at the
thought, and the indent Katya’s fingernail left behind.

“Not a good idea.”

“I agree. Try again.”

Katya was cruel. She let
the silence drag out until Alex was a sweating, mumbling mess.

“How about I give you a
hint?”

“Please.”

“Eerie swims every
morning. Quite a bit, I think. That’s probably why she can get away with eating
whatever she wants,” Katya said enviously, “and keep that figure.”

Alex wasn’t entirely
sure whether Katya envied Eerie’s weight, or her dietary freedom.

“I can’t imagine why
that would bother you,” Alex complained, pointing at the crumb-covered plate
between them. “I mean, all you eat is fattening crap, and you look alright. So,
why would you...uh...”

Katya’s eyes blazed
momentarily, and Alex braced himself for a slap that never arrived. She cocked
her head to the side and studied him as if he were a painting that she didn’t
understand, and hadn’t quite made up her mind as to whether or not she liked.

“We are going to pretend
that you didn’t say that,” Katya said firmly, and Alex saw no reason to argue. “Back
to the subject at hand. You can swim. I know. I’ve seen it firsthand.”

“Take her swimming,
then?” Alex scratched his head. “Like, at the pool, or something?”

“You are the least
romantic boy,” Katya said flatly. “I just meant you wouldn’t drown.”

“Hey!” Alex objected,
sitting bolt upright. “Emily always used to say...”

“I know. I overheard it.
And you can’t take Eerie swimming in the pool, because it’s the lap pool she
swims in every day. No, I got something much better in mind,” Katya said, with
a lascivious grin that reminded him of Renton. “You see, I happen to know a
little secret about the Academy. One involving a secret and totally romantic hot
spring.”

“Really?”

“Yup.”

“How do you know
about...”

Katya held up one hand,
and Alex trailed off.

“I’m not telling. And
Ana will figure out the details. Trust me.”

“More help from the
Black Sun? I don’t know. I don’t really want to fall into Anastasia’s debt. No
offense...”

“None taken,” Katya said
curtly, tossing the apple juice container in the direction of the trash and
standing up. “That’s my idea, anyway. You can come up with your own, if you
don’t like it.”

“No, wait,” Alex said
apologetically, hurrying after her as she walked out of the coffee house. “You’re
totally right. I’m sorry. I don’t have any good ideas of my own.”

Katya slapped him
heartily on the back and laughed.

“Don’t look so down,”
she admonished him. “Emily Muir isn’t the only one who looks alright in a
bathing suit, you know?”

“We haven’t had a chance to talk for
a while, now,”
Rebecca
said, flicking ash from her cigarette out the open window. “How’s life at the
Far Shores treating you?”

“Um, good. I guess. Sort
of.”

“Well, that’s a ringing
endorsement.”

Alex sighed and glanced
over at Rebecca. He lay on the relatively new leather couch that had replaced
the one he destroyed during his activation.

“I don’t know. What do
you want me to say? I’d just gotten used to being at the Academy, and now I
have to spend half the week at some weird compound, training with the Auditors
and missing the goddamn dorms.”

“Well, you could say
exactly that,” Rebecca said evenly. “For example.”

“Don’t give me shit,
Rebecca,” Alex grumbled. “I’m not in the mood.”

“Oh? And why not?”

“No reason, okay? Don’t
psychoanalyze me, either.”

“I don’t do that, Alex.
Actually, I don’t think anyone does that anymore. Freud’s been pretty much
discredited. These days it’s all Prozac and cognitive behavioral therapy.”

“Because they are lucky
enough not to have an empath on their case all the time.”

“Not fair. I promised
not to do that to you, and I’ve kept my promise. You wouldn’t be such a
miserable little shit if I were empathically manipulating you. I’d at least do
something about your sparkling personality and sunny outlook on life.”

Alex held his hands up
in surrender.

“You win. Can we start
over?”

“Sure,” Rebecca
responded cheerfully. “How’re things?”

“Okay, I guess. I don’t
like the Far Shores that much. It’s big and empty and creepy, and it all feels
like it was furnished by IKEA. I mean, maybe it’ll get better next week, when
we start having classes and stuff, but right now it’s really boring. And I miss
my friends.”

“I hear you. And you’re
right about where they got the furniture, by the way. But look on the bright
side – you actually have friends to miss. That’s a big step forward, in my
opinion. Speaking of, how’re things with Eerie?”

“Good,” Alex responded
guardedly, licking his dry lips. “We’re going swimming later.”

“Cute. I’m glad she
didn’t ditch you again, like last week.”

“Yeah, well, I think she
was just trying to make a point. Did she talk to you about that?”

“Even if she did, I
wouldn’t share with you, kiddo. These sessions are confidential, you know.
Doesn’t matter who asks – Alice, Gaul, whoever. Anything you tell me stays with
me.”

“Really?” Alex glanced
over at Rebecca’s face, as if to double-check. “That surprises me.”

“Why?”

“I just figured, you
know, that I had a file somewhere...”

“You do. I’ve seen it.
But none of what we talked about made it in there. Don’t get me wrong – I do an
eval of you every few months, and I’m part of the panel that determines your
suitability for field operations. What we discuss here does inform my
professional opinion of you. But not a word of what we discuss leaves the room.”

Alex stretched out on
the couch as if he intended to take a nap, then rolled on his side to face her.

“Huh. That makes me feel
a little better.”

“Good. So, you were
talking about Eerie?”

“I don’t think I was,
actually, but I will. We are, you know – I, um,” Alex said, blushing and
boasting at the same time, “asked her out. So we are, well, going out, I guess.”

Rebecca smiled wryly
while she pitched the stub of her cigarette out the window.

“Good for you. Glad you
finally worked up the courage.”

“Me too,” Alex agreed,
nodding. “I’m not sure why I waited so long, honestly. If Katya hadn’t gotten
on my case, and Eerie hadn’t spent last weekend with her coworkers from
Processing, I might not have.”

“I’d imagine you were
keeping your options open,” Rebecca pointed out, standing up from the
windowsill and moving over to the couch, knocking his shoes off one end so she
could sit. “Jealousy is a powerful motivator, though, as I’m sure Eerie is
perfectly aware.”

“Maybe,” Alex said,
frowning. “Katya said the same thing. But I’m still not sure that Eerie would
do something like that. I kinda think she really was just busy. It’s not like
her, you know? She’s too nice for that shit.”

Rebecca wanted to laugh,
but she didn’t. The blindness of young love, she thought. It was so cute that
it made her a little sick to her stomach. Of course, that could have just been
jealousy on her part. Contrary to popular opinion, an empath’s own emotions
were as much a mystery as they were for anyone.

“If you say so. Out of
curiosity, though, that’s the second time you mentioned Katya Zharova. Miss
Gallow seems to think the two of you have gotten rather close – or is that just
because you were partnered for Audits training?”

Alex frowned and worried
his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger, considering.

“No. That isn’t all of
it. I didn’t trust her at all at first, you know? Anastasia assigned her to
look after me, and I figured it was all some cartel fuckery. Anyway, after all
that shit with Emily, I was kinda suspicious of any girl around here that paid
attention to me.”

Rebecca let the
underlying misogyny slide. It wasn’t as if Alex was wrong – the cartels used
whatever tool they thought would be most effective in their ongoing war for the
hearts and minds of the students of the Academy, and sex and personal
relationships were always near the top of the list, along with power and money.
Probably higher on the list, when it came to adolescent boys. As a matter of
fact, Rebecca suspected that Alex probably hadn’t seen the last of that
particular gambit – Anastasia hadn’t made an open play for Alex’s loyalty yet,
something that worried Rebecca. There was no guarantee that a cartel wouldn’t attempt
to turn an eligible daughter or orphan into a recruiting opportunity,
particularly as Emily Muir had been very nearly successful, by all accounts.
His fragile involvement with a Changeling would probably make that tactic even
more appealing – no one in their right mind gave that relationship a chance at
long-term success. One of the inherent difficulties with interspecies romance.

“But Katya isn’t like
that. She’s pretty honest, and she’s never tried to sucker me into anything.
And she’s really smart about some stuff – I think I’ve learned more about using
my protocol from her than I have from my teachers.”

That was worrisome as
well. Rebecca would have to review Zharova’s file, but off the top of her head,
she couldn’t think of a reason why Katya would have any particular expertise
with Black Protocols, or an affinity for teaching Alex to use his. Did she have
some kind of special knowledge of Alex’s protocol in particular? Was that the
reason that Anastasia Martynova had paired the two of them in the first place?
Or did she somehow predict their surprising personal affinity? Too many
questions and unknown parameters to make a judgment. Rebecca despised issues
that revolved around Anastasia Martynova.

“I don’t think I could
make it in the Program without her. And I know for sure I’d go nuts at the Far
Shores if I didn’t have her to hang out with. I mean, Haley and Min-jun are
alright, don’t get me wrong, but...”

“I understand,” Rebecca
cut in smoothly, saving him from trying to explain the vagaries of friendship
without feeling like an asshole. “And I’m glad you have someone to help you
through the Program. It’s not something anyone should face alone. As a matter
of fact, that’s why Auditors tend to work in pairs. It’s easier to carry that
sort of burden with a partner, outside of the practical advantages. I’m a
little surprised that you feel so close to someone who was raised as a member
of the Black Sun, and trained as an assassin, though. I would have thought that
the two of you wouldn’t have much in common.”

Alex nodded.

“I know. But it doesn’t
feel that way.”

Rebecca had a whole host
of questions that would need to be answered, but Alex wasn’t the person she needed
to ask. She directed the conversation in a slightly different direction.

“What about Vivik? You
haven’t mentioned him at all.”

Alex’s expression turned
sour.

“That’s because I
haven’t seen him at all,” he said, looking a bit hurt. “The guy’s always busy.
Don’t ask me with what.”

***

Run.

That was the only thing
left in his mind, burned clean by the fire that even now consumed his family
estate, a distant orange glow against the deep purple of South Carolina hills
giving way reluctantly to the night behind him. The ground he ran across,
remnants of ravaged Appalachian second-growth forest, were as familiar to him
as the gardens surrounding his home, gardens that were now little more than
flame and ash, but he could not keep his footing. Every tree root seemed
determined to trip him, every patch of mud impossibly slick. Tree branches tore
his face and shredded the linen clothes he had worn to the ball.

The Planters Ball had
been a tradition in the Hegemony for almost two centuries, continuing after the
southern families who had begun the practice gradually lost power and influence
as a result of the Civil War and the Reconstruction that followed. Of the four
major American Hegemonic cartels – the Morgan Cartel, the Roth-Levy Cartel, the
Pall-Norst, and his own, the Linfield Cartel – three still had major holdings
in the southeastern United States. After his cartel had absorbed the holdings
of the Raleigh Cartel in New Orleans and Mobile last month, Paul Linfield had
been consolidating two side-by-side shipping operations into something less
unwieldy, his first real assignment since leaving the Academy. He hadn’t even
been back home since May, except for tonight.

There was a great
cracking, booming sound behind him – another explosion, maybe, or the last of
his home collapsing. Paul had no intentions of stopping to find out. He hit the
old dirt track that he had followed into the foothills with his dogs to go deer
and coon hunting as a child, then turned along the river, heading for the nearby
highway.

If he could make it that
far, Paul figured, clambering down a muddy slope toward the swollen creek, then
he could use his protocol, grab a ride in the fastest car he could find, get as
far from here as possible.

One of Paul’s ankles rolled
on the soft dirt. He reacted just in time to spare himself a headfirst dive
into the cold waters of the creek, burbling cheerfully as if the night weren’t stained
red. He brushed the mud from his hands onto his ruined shirt and struggled back
upright, making the best progress he could on the treacherous ground at the
edge of the creek.

The dogs had been
barking for so long that it took him a moment to place what had changed, why
the silence struck him as new and frightening. He wondered what that could have
meant. Many of the dogs had been kenneled on neighboring properties. Paul had
seen enough horror that evening to feel genuine pity for them.

He trudged along in the
mud, sinking to his shins with every third step, then extricating himself to
begin the process again. His mind screamed at him to run, to flee, but no
matter how he tried, he couldn’t move any faster. Paul started to wonder
whether it had been a mistake to leave the path in favor of the creek bed. Were
they even looking for him? Did they know he had survived?

Paul shook his head and
forced his way onward through the poison ivy, scrub oak, and kudzu that choked
the gully. Too many questions, he thought grimly, and this wasn’t the time or
place to try and discover an answer. He didn’t know why his cartel had been
attacked, or with what intent. He wasn’t even sure he was being pursued – he
just had to assume as much, until a successful escape proved otherwise.

He shuddered at all-too-recent
memories and forced his way through a thorn bush, greedily tearing away strips
of his tattered coat. By the time he emerged from the other side of the
thicket, the skin on his arms was scratched and bleeding, but Paul scarcely
noticed, plunging into the next tangle of nettles recklessly.

Halfway through, he
froze, not even moving to brush the thorn scratching the inside of his ear.
Paul’s eyes rolled back in his head.

Someone was searching
the area for stray thoughts and fugitives from the massacre, conducting a
wideband telepathic sweep. Paul’s chances of escaping detection were dependent
on being the superior telepath. Tense moments passed, blood and sweat that he
could not acknowledge crawling tortuously down his skin. He muted every aspect
of his being, built a wall around himself, an opaque barrier that he concealed
himself behind, his mind as quiet as he was capable of making it. He heard
nothing but the pervasive humming, the sound that his protocol had created
since he was a child, the sound that only he could hear.

Nothing happened for a
long time.

Paul Linfield could only
guess when to stop hiding. It wasn’t an easy decision – move too soon and he
would fall prey to seeking telepaths, wait too long and he might be physically
hunted down where he stood. He debated for what he thought was a half-hour, but
was actually no more than ten minutes, before gingerly extracting himself from
the brambles. The sky remained cloudy and starless, free from any evident
threat.