Sirius Academy (Jezebel's Ladder) (20 page)

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” she
said, a hint of doubt creeping into her voice.

“Given your history of violence
against this man, the mil court could try you for murder.”

Red blinked, speechless.

Zeiss continued, his voice
cracking. “You also described this very procedure in a public forum. When you
kill a known enemy with a planned set of steps, that’s called what?”

“Premeditated murder,” said Alistair.
“That’s time in jail just waiting for the trial. The penalty for me leaving my
post is a court martial. Given that it ended in fatalities, I could do time in
the brig, too.”

The color drained from Red’s face.

“We’re not going to let that
happen,” Zeiss said softly. He resumed his adjusted re-enactment with the
referee. “I heard the screams and rushed in. I was striking from lower because
I was leaning on the crutches, A. You saved me from the Taser by turning out
the lights and pegging the second guy.”

“I don’t think it’s right for me to
play hero,” said Alistair.

“Is it right for both of you to get
kicked out of the program?” asked Zeiss. “Man up.”

“I’ll grab a second stick.”

“I choked the third as he ran
away,” said Kaguya. “Neither of you knows the technique.”

Alistair’s radio bleeped. “Professor
Horvath armed and closing fast.”

“Let’s go to the men’s showers,”
cajoled Kaguya, pulling Red by the arm.

They all moved to their places.

When Horvath ran through the door,
she saw the red splatter and panicked. The walls and shower dripped with mock
arterial spray from half a dozen murders.

“Treasure is locked up, sir,”
Alistair reported. “We foiled an attempted gang rape. This is chalk from Z’s bamboo
stick.” The hand on her sidearm trembled for a moment as Horvath stood over the
unconscious criminals. Alistair continued to stumble over the planned lie. “That
one will tell you: Z surprised them and killed the Rex in the dark.”

The phrasing tipped her off. Even
with everything at stake, her former assistant couldn’t bear lying to her. Zeiss
chimed in, “That’s right. Forensics will show my weapon killed him and injured
the other. Let’s go to your office, sir, and I’ll sign a statement.”

Refusing to be herded, Professor
Horvath read the truth from the scene. The footprints and weapon strikes on the
Tasered man were Red’s handiwork, no doubt. She knew enough to proceed. “Z, the
Rex is the one who injured your knee.” It wasn’t a question. “You had to go for
the kill because he’d knocked you down and wasn’t stopping.”

“Yes, sir. A-man, you got the blood
on your hands treating my injuries,” whispered Zeiss. “I appreciate it.”

“What?” asked the referee.

“Across the eye ridge,” Trina said,
kissing the spot indicated on Zeiss’s forehead. “It’ll swell and drip blood
into his eye. He can fake the injured ribs.”

Kaguya heard Alistair protest, “Do
I have to?”

“Without it, no one will believe he
bested Merrick, even with a staff from behind. We have twenty seconds.”

Zeiss crouched and braced. Trina
held him by the shoulders for the two blows it took to make him bleed.

“Let me get you an ice pack,”
Alistair said, hand shaking.

“Not until it turns purple,” hissed
Zeiss.

Trina handed Alistair a field
bandage. “I’ll be writing the girls’ statements.”

When the six guards burst in, the
former Grunt-Monkey was struggling not to weep as he applied first aid.

****

The guards let Kaguya play her
phone video games while she waited. After threading the game maze to the center
of Osaka Castle, she posted a note on the Shogun’s desk in handwritten kanji.
“Rogue agent provided me with inside track to Monk. Switching to carrot. Help
them find half the explosives.”

When she glanced up from her
message, she saw the Benson girl staring at the wall of the clinic, reliving
the trauma. Kaguya closed her game and went to comfort the child.

The little girl named Miracle didn’t speak for days after
the kidnapping attempt at the UN Dessert Fair. Due to the media storm, New York wasn’t safe, so her parents sent her to stay with ‘Grandma Claudette’. Arab papers
had Mira’s blurry, red-handed picture on the front page. They painted her as
the child of the Great Whore Jezebel, who hated Muslims and taught her to kill.
The FBI was still investigating the fundraiser incident, and rhetoric was
flying on all sides.

After Claudette Fortune met the
company jet at the DFW airport, she took the girl’s hand and said, “Hi darlin’,
you ready to have some fun with Grandma? Riding ponies? You love Carmen’s blue
corn enchiladas . . .”

The fifty-year-old brunette starlet
sat down in a black plastic chair. “Listen with your special ears, okay?” The
girl obeyed. Claudette tasted like sweet tea and pecan mini muffins. “I’m your
mother’s best girlfriend, your father’s friend, and Daniel’s step-mother. We’re
family, you understand. Nobody’s going to hurt you while I have you here. Do
you believe that?”

The girl nodded.

“Why do you think they sent you
here?”

The girl whispered, “I murdered
that man. Now they don’t want to be around me.”

Claudette shook her head. “No. That
man wasn’t human; he was a virus, a destroyer.”

Mira cocked her head. “That’s not
the way Daddy’s church talks.”

“It’s the rules we decided on for
our species when we accepted the pages.”

“The funny gold paper that talks to
people?”

Claudette nodded. “But you don’t
need to read pages to have talents. You were born knowing what they teach, at
least some of them. Your mom and a bunch of really smart people made some rules.
One of those rules said those who kill humans can be reclassified. They change
from being normal cells in the body to a cancer. Our species is permitted,
after a warning and three witnesses, to end that threat.”

“I heard their lights go out,
Grandma.”

The starlet held the girl tight.
“Those who live only to consume and destroy are no better than the virus. Their
plan was to drug you with the food and have fake paramedics haul you off in an ambulance.
They were going to get your dad to change his vote and then kill you.”

Her eyes got big as Claudette
continued. “They didn’t want me to tell you, but you need to know how and why
to keep this from happening again. Who did you tell about the elephant ears?”

“Everybody,” cried the girl.

****

Days later, after numerous
consultations with therapists, as the girl drank a Steak and Shake milkshake, Claudette
asked, “What have you learned, darlin’?”

Mira held up a finger. “Number one:
people are always trying to kill or threaten the person making a change.”

“Big words. What’s number two?”

“With the right gun, your aim doesn’t
need to be perfect. Just learn not to jump or close your eyes when you hear the
bang.”

When the guard raised an eyebrow,
the starlet said, “It’s okay Henri; better too early than too late.”

The girl continued, “Three: people
can use things they know you like to hurt you. Don’t let anyone know. Four:
even though Mom likes dancing and Trina likes gymnastics, I should learn to
fight like Dad.”

Claudette shook her head. “Benny works
out every morning with kickboxing; that isn’t for you. But you’re right. The
best way to recover from being a victim is to kick someone’s ass. When it
happened to me, I vowed it would never happen again. I’ll talk to your daddy.
He’s more okay with you studying martial arts than Jez would be.”

****

That evening, she sat with her arm
around Mira on the sofa as they watched a movie. Claudette said, “I love
spending time with you, darlin’, but you have a mother that you need to spend
time with while you can.”

“Mom’s always working.”

Grandma nodded. “Without Trina there,
she won’t be able to.”

The girl’s face brightened in a smile.
“Really?”

“Jez promised to cut back to twenty
hours a week unless there’s an emergency.”

“Those happen a lot.”

Claudette kissed her on the
forehead. “Smart girl. You and Benny will keep her honest, though.”

Mira didn’t remember what the movie
was about; she just kept staring at the delicious smelling dish of candy. She
couldn’t bring herself to taste it because she didn’t know who might have
poisoned it since it left the store. She had to stay alert if she wanted to
protect her mom.

Daniel sat listening in the clinic room where Zeiss was
being poked, prodded, and monitored. The TA confessed, “I screwed up.”

Trina paced and told him, “I saw
the tapes. It could’ve happened to anyone. You did your best to contain the
situation afterward, and you saved Mira from the immediate fallout. There’ll be
another bonus.”

“Would you people stop with the
damn money?!” Zeiss burst out. “What do you mean immediate?”

Trina said grimly, “The UN is
sending investigators to look into the incident.”

“I know my story. I’ll stick to
it.”

“That’s just it. Mira can’t. She’s
killed people before—justified, but she confuses the incidents. We can’t afford
for anyone to question her in this fragile state. She needs a few weeks to
recover.”

“Send her to some spa and delay her
a semester.”

“She won’t go. Worse, they want to
know what broke our conditioning over the Rex. They’re supposed to be safe. Now
the UN is worried any of the Rexes could go rogue.”

“And Red would do her best to
convince them that the only good Rex is a dead one,” Zeiss sighed. “Or slip
about her cover when she’s angry.”

“You understand why she needs to be
sequestered,” said Trina. “I have a plan, but I need your help.”

“It’s that old Chinese curse: save
someone’s life and you’re responsible for them forever,” Zeiss sighed. “Tell
me. The pain meds will help.”

Daniel chuckled. “Actually, it’s
that vacation time you’ve been requesting.”

“Pardon?”

“We’ll leak to the school that you
and Red are suspected of faking a drug test,” the billionaire said. Zeiss
paled. “One of the extreme administrative penalties is to sentence students to
undergo isolation testing early. It’s brutal and causes a lot of washouts.
Usually participation is voluntary and near the end of the third year. But if
someone’s a problem, it gives us a chance to get rid of them early with no
fuss.”

“That worked so well with Merrick.”

Trina glared at him. “Focus. Once
it begins, nothing can interrupt the test short of a drop request or Marsh
pulling them from the program. There are six people in the pod: no class, no
TV, no computers, and no distractions for two weeks.”

Zeiss smiled. “I’ll sign. I don’t
need a computer because I hand write all my math papers first. But why would I
take this training?”

“Because I checked the ‘space
travel’ box for you when you became my assistant,” Daniel admitted.

“For a chance to work on my
dissertation in peace for two weeks, I’d do just about anything,” said Zeiss. “But
Red needs a sympathetic woman for her room. She’s . . . still recovering from
the attack.”

Trina looked at the floor. “I tried
everything I could to make sure it would never happen to her too.”

Daniel held her hand. “You did. Who
can we get? Sonrisa can’t miss that much class.”

“Mori-san emailed me his personal
gratitude this morning,” Zeiss noted. “Kaguya told him I prevented the rape of
both women and was injured in the process. When he demanded I name a reward, I
asked him to send his personal explosives sweeper team. They’re going to sniff
every inch of this island until we find those bombs.”

“Turning disaster into opportunity.
Kudos,” said Daniel. “But what does that have to do with the female problem?”

“Kaguya lied to her father. She
begged me not to show him the fight video, and she seemed almost human when she
was comforting Mira earlier. She might volunteer if approached properly,
sensei
.”
Zeiss stressed, trying to signal Daniel.

Trina nodded. “I’ll arrange it.”

“He means me,” Daniel sighed. “She
flirts with me constantly.”

“Oh? Then I’m definitely getting
her to volunteer.”

The TA warned, “This is going to
wreak havoc with everyone’s schedule. Can you manage without me for two weeks?”

“If you put your finger in the
ocean and take it out, does the imprint stay?” Daniel asked.

“No.”

“Then you’re replaceable.”

“You should write Hallmark cards,”
Zeiss joked. “Yours is much better than Red’s flattery: you’re abnormal and
don’t know much, but at least you’ll talk to me.”

This got Trina to laugh, despite
the serious topics. “He just doesn’t want you to worry. If it makes you feel
more appreciated, he’ll whine and complain to me the whole time you’re gone.
But that’s my problem. You consistently exceed expectations, Z. If you need
anything, say the word.”

“What about Alistair?”

“We’ll need at least one person for
the UN investigators to grill. Unfortunately, he’s not comfortable with lying
to get the ‘hero’ label. He admits to zapping one man with his own Taser, but
he’s spreading the rumor that you did most of the work.”

“Great.”

“Don’t worry; you’ll be cleared.
I’ll make sure of it.”

“No. I didn’t mind the manslaughter
charge, but the reputation thing is getting out of hand.”

She leaned forward and kissed the livid
bruise over his eye. “You’ll bear that, too.”

****

Zeiss was the first one who moved
into the isolation pod. It had three twin beds like any other student pod;
however, there were no windows, clocks, TVs, microwaves, or computers. There
were, however, stacks of paper and pencils in the common area. He picked the
room with the escape hatch on the bottom half of the curved sidewall.

He was merrily sharpening a pencil
when Red arrived. She was subdued, with no splash of color in her hair. The
clothes in her bag were all muted tones. There were three other men already
unpacking. Zeiss pointed, “I reserved the room next to the bathroom for you
ladies and made up signs to switch the room between boys and girls. Luckily, I
brought my own tape and paperclips.”

“You just live for this shit, don’t
you?” Red grumbled. Smacking the side of her goggles, she complained, “There’s
no signal here.”

“It should still work in video-log
mode; you just can’t hit playback. Nothing but rest and productive time,” he
sighed. His knee was strapped into a sky-blue immobilizer. He wore tan shorts,
sandals, and a mock tourist T-shirt that said, “Switzerland: Make chocolate,
not war.”

“You’re sick.”

He blew the shavings off his pencil
point and smiled.

Noticing his bruised and
butterfly-stitched eye ridge, she asked, “How’d you get hurt?”

Not wanting to remind her of the
rape or make her feel any guiltier, he muttered, “It happened right after I got
my crutches.” He held out one to demonstrate. “I’m bad with doorframes. Don’t
worry; hockey hurt worse than this.”

She leaned in to examine the injury
and surprised him by kissing the injury the exact same way Trina had. “I didn’t
ask her to do that,” Zeiss announced to the students milling around.

After she dumped her gear on the
bottom bunk, Red whistled for attention. “All right, you guys, listen up. Z, give
us the lecture. I know you’ve done all the research. Don’t piss me off later by
telling me I’m doing it wrong.”

“If I’m going to instruct, I should
wait until our final student arrives,” Zeiss objected.

Red whispered, “But shouldn’t you
give us some kind of edge for being early?”

“This isn’t a competition. You’ll
succeed only through balance and cooperation.”

“Fine, I’ll wait,” she said,
wandering into his room. “Books? Honest-to-God paper books? Risa would freak.”

“No e-readers allowed here either,”
Zeiss explained. “I brought a few newspapers and magazines. I’ll loan them out
as I finish them.”

She looked at the math and science
titles and wrinkled her nose. “If we run out of toilet paper, maybe.”

“Why are you being so negative?”
the TA asked.

“I lost my place on the Sunday
practice rotation. I’ll have to wait another semester before I get to fly with
Lou and impress him with how great a pilot I am.”

“You have years to show him. Right
now, you need to rest.” He pulled out one tome, and said, “Here. This is one of
the most exciting action books of its era, written by the governor of Maine.”

“
Ben Hur
? Grandpa said the
movie won a lot of awards, but wasn’t it black-and-white? Wait, you have some
Clancy in that stack. Gimme.”

“After you finish
Ben Hur
,”
he asserted. He handed her a dictionary. “You’ll need this for the vocabulary.”

Red stuck out her tongue.

Soon after, Kaguya arrived carrying
a purse. One guard trailed behind her, hefting three suitcases, while a second
man pushed a monstrous, meter-high electronics console, studded with knobs,
lights, and levers. “There you go, Miss Mori. Anything more we can do?”

“Thank you,” Kaguya said, kissing
her finger and touching the cheek of the one who’d asked. He shivered, bowed,
and departed. She tipped the one with the bags. He started to object until he
saw there were two zeroes on the bill. Once the guards were out, the front
airlock clicked shut, cutting off all contact with the outside world.

The Japanese heiress wore a gold
ensemble that displayed the maximum amount of leg. The three male students fell
over themselves competing to carry her belongings to the room.

“Why can she bring that and I can’t
have a stupid tablet?” hissed Red.

Zeiss shrugged. “For the next two weeks,
I am not a TA. I don’t have to worry.”

“Daniel-san gave me a waiver,”
Kaguya said, twirling her hair. “It has no computer screen, no clock, and I use
it for my sculpting. He thought it might be soothing for everyone.”

When Red heard something thump in
her room, she ran to look. Someone had placed her belongings on the top bunk.
Her sparring helmet had dropped into the trash. She growled at the trespassers.
“Out. Time for briefing. We’ve already spent twenty minutes longer in this
prison than she has.”

Zeiss was working a Sudoku when Red
cleared her throat.

Like a bored tour guide, he
recited, “This exercise was started because of the moon base disaster a few
years ago. They reached Lagrange orbit but didn’t have the fuel or heat shields
to return to Earth. They had to dangle over hell in a leaky bucket for two
weeks until rescue arrived. This simulation will give you a small taste of what
they went through. It’s all in the brochure.” Zeiss looked up—from their blank
expressions, no one in the front row had read ahead. He sighed. “There are ten
simplified control stations around the common area. If something is a little
out of alignment, a warning ping sounds. To fix it, you hold down the button
until the light goes out. It could take a few minutes. If we have a critical
failure, an alarm sounds until the item is repaired. I’d suggest we keep
someone awake in the control area at all times.”

“There are thirty-five disaster
scenarios they could hit us with at any time to shake us up,” said a student in
a military uniform and navigator’s bars.

To Red, Zeiss said, “Hire this man.
Green here not only aced my class, but I’m betting he’s the only one who
brought the brochure with him.”

An embarrassed sequence of looks
confirmed this guess. Zeiss shook his head, returning to his puzzle. “Eat when
it comes through the side door. Find your center. Stick to a fixed schedule.
Don’t sleep all the time or you’ll lose perspective and depression will set in.
Exercise for serotonin. Learn to meditate. Let anger flow through you. If you
attempt to exit or assault another student, you wash out of the program. I
brought paper course materials if anyone’s interested in reading ahead in their
normal classes.”

Then Zeiss walked to his room.

“Wait, are we supposed to just
sleep eight hours, work out, study, and eat?” asked a bald Indian man the
others called ‘Cue Ball’. “No movies, no TV, nothing?”

The blond Swiss teacher said, “It
won’t kill you. Other than Sundays, that’s been my life for the last twenty
years.”

“I brought cards,” announced Red.

“I have music,” added Kaguya,
hopping into her room to get the music console.

“No other advice?” pleaded Zeiss’s
roommate, Ernesto.

“No sex. In this environment, it’s
worse than playing with petrol.”

“Challenge accepted,” whispered
Kaguya in her room.

Red, who’d come in for the cards,
intimated, “There’s no way you’ll break down Mr. Rules.”

“All men crumble before me.”

“He’s
different
,” The girl
smiled and explained how Zeiss spent his weekends with Sojiro. “So he’s just a
teensy bit . . .”

“Gay? That means he’s part het, and
one part is all I need,” Kaguya said suggestively.

“He’s hand-writing his mother a
letter right now. He gets bundles of them from her when the mail plane comes.”

“That’s a sign of respect. You can
tell how a man is going to treat his wife by watching the way he treats his
mother.”

“I warned you.”

****

After dinner, Zeiss lingered in the
dining area to socialize and read the mail he’d received through the meal hatch.

“How come we didn’t get mail?”
asked his roommate, Ernesto.

“Did you ask your friends to take
turns writing you every day?” replied Zeiss. “I did.”

“How do we know you’re not here as
a plant, to spy on us?” Ernesto countered.

“I’m on suspension,” he replied.

“Prove it.”

Zeiss walked up to a poster that
read, “The acid used in colas must bear a hazardous materials placard when
transported.” He ripped it off the wall and tore it into strips. “I’m sick of
those things.”

“You rebel,” giggled Red.

“Good enough for me,” said Kaguya.

“I hear he let a Rex beat the shit
out of him to save some students; he can sit at my table any day,” said the mil
navigator. Red furrowed her brow.

“How do we choose the four players?”
Kaguya asked quickly.