CHAPTER 8 #2
Edmund moves to the table, where the scorpions are still trapped beneath whiskey glasses. The one that stung him is dead. Due to the way they’ve been engineered, deathstalkers only get one shot before they die, a single gift of poison in exchange for their lives.
He knocks the glass aside and picks up the corpse, lifting it to his mouth, biting off the stinger, and chewing it flat with slow, grinding focus before tossing the rest onto the table. It’s tradition: survive a deathstalker, eat the stinger.
Edmund is still chewing when he retrieves his burnt-out cigar, clips it, lights it, and takes a pull as he turns toward the door.
I call after him. “You still have not told me what’s causing the odor on my dress.”
He swallows the stinger, glances back, and points the cigar at me. “Irasbis Gas. It is a chemical aerosol designed to disrupt brain neurotransmitters and induce hyper-aggression.”
He can’t mean our brains. If he did, I’d already be dead.
“Which type of brain?”
Edmund slides the cigar between his teeth and walks out.
“Canine.”
I stand by the armor-covered window, my shoulders rising and falling with each breath.
The salon around me is a blur of indistinct faces and hushed voices, but every so often, the skeleton clock on the wall keeps me tethered to the passage of time.
Thirty minutes have passed since the Pinkie left to pick up Jane.
Far too long. Either the train’s armor is preventing her from crossing carriages, she refused Edmund’s invitation, or she’s dead.
Dead like I almost was.
Now more than ever, I’m sure the Copper intended to kill us both in the tunnel, at least until Jack showed up.
Narcotic dogs are well-trained and rarely attack humans without cause.
No one would have questioned the Copper when he removed their muzzles, thinking they were sniffing out illegal stashes of Bliss.
But they weren’t. The dogs were sniffing out the Irasbis Gas that marked Jane and me as targets.
The hair on my nape stands up as I recall the dogs lunging at me when I left the lavatory.
If the Copper had released them on Jane and me in the pitch-black tunnel, we wouldn’t have seen them coming.
We would’ve swung blindly while being torn apart.
With the security cameras sabotaged and no witnesses, the truth would’ve died with us.
People might’ve assumed Jane and I provoked the dogs, saying we got what we deserved.
The only issue is the cleanup. How did the Copper plan to explain a reprogrammed Pinkie and the sabotaged security cameras? How did he plan to erase all traces of the Irasbis Gas from our seats and our mutilated bodies? One thing is for sure: the hit wasn’t carried out by a single person.
Charlotte is sitting on a sofa, her red-rimmed eyes fixed on Jack.
Her manicured nails dig into the armrests as if she’s about to lunge and tackle him to the floor.
Jack ignores her as he uses a torque wrench to finish repairing the toy airplane.
More than ever, I want to know what happened between them and how Edmund was involved, but now isn’t the right time to ask.
“Fixed.” Jack tosses the airplane to Dickie. “Try not to fly it into the bathtub again.”
“As a wise man, I never make the same mistake twice,” Dickie replies.
Jack grabs a bottle of whiskey from the bar cart, salutes Dickie with it, and heads for the door.
Charlotte calls out after him shrilly. “I’ll never forgive you for what you did.”
Jack stops, his fist tightening around the neck of the whiskey bottle. “I warned you not to come.”
“What other choice did I have? If we’d stayed in the green first-year carriage, Lore would’ve died. And I thought—”
“You thought what?”
“I—” Charlotte’s voice falters, small and frail. “I thought you’d protect me.”
“That’s not my job, darling. Not anymore.”
“But Jack—” She rocks out of her chair. “What about Rosamund? I know you’re mad, and I know you don’t believe me when I say I never meant for things to go as far as they did, but you and Edmund are the only people she listens to. If you don’t step in, she’s going to come for me.”
Jack remains turned, but I catch his reflection in the wall mirror. His drunk, bloodshot eyes aren’t nearly as cold as his tone. “You’ve still got a favor from Ed. Be smart about it.”
He leaves.
Charlotte’s desperation fades into the same vacant stare she wore on Harrison’s jet. I reach for her shoulder, but she squeezes her eyes shut and vanishes into the cool dimness of the lavatory.
As she shuts the door, I feel like it’s closing on me.
Again. Charlotte and I used to share everything, but over the two years we were apart, she’s built an entirely new life I know nothing about.
Jack, Dickie, Edmund, and now some girl named Rosamund.
Given the similarity of her name to Edmund’s, I assume she’s his twin sister.
At the table, Dickie fiddles with the control panel on his airplane's belly. As I walk over to him, he says, “Don’t look at me. I don’t know a thing.”
“And that doesn’t bother you?”
He shrugs. “We’ve all got our secrets.”
I nod, unable to argue with that.
Minutes pass quietly. Dickie alternates between inspecting the airplane and trying to contact the Pinkie through his Bond. Each attempt fails. Finally, he parks himself in front of the salon’s door and taps his foot impatiently.
“Why do you need Edmund’s Pinkie?” I ask.
“It’s not Ed’s,” Dickie says. “It’s mine. And I’m not allowed to go anywhere without it because I’m a minor.”
“So, it’s your babysitter?”
“No. My chaperone.”
“What’s the difference?”
“The difference is the snitching.” Dickie glares at the door. “That shifty robot records everything I say and do, then sends the footage to the Office of Student Affairs to make sure I’m not engaging in any ‘adult activity’. It’s oppression, if you ask me. A violation of my rights.”
Maybe it is. But at least Dickie doesn’t have to follow the formal behavior laws. Given how he seems to blurt out every thought that pops into his head, he probably wouldn’t last long under those restrictions.
We fall into silence again. Ten minutes later, the train finally begins to slow.
The jazz playing over the PA system cuts off, and a metallic clatter echoes outside as the armor retracts into the undercarriage.
The windows frame a living painting of blue sky and snow-capped mountains.
A rainbow spills across bright clouds, with the glowing crescent arching over hills and rivers that wind through pine forests like strings of sapphires.
In the distance, nestled in a valley between jagged peaks, Grandmaster University finally appears.
The Jewel of the Civilized World.
Dickie and I rush to the window.
The campus is enormous, the size of a city, and is almost entirely walled in by mountains.
Only the west side is open, stretching to the shores of a clear, blue ocean that glitters like a waypoint where the stars gather until nightfall.
Armed Coppers guard the campus borders from stone watchtowers, while flocks of security drones patrol the sky, casting shadows over the ornate brick dormitories, waterfront Fraternity Houses, historic Lecture Halls, and cobblestone streets polished to a shine by more than a century of footsteps.
I learned everything about Grandmaster University from Hillaire, including details I hadn’t asked for or cared to know.
Designed by Oranges and built by Pinkies, it’s a fusion of Art Deco and Art Nouveau styles.
The buildings are so different from each other that it’s like two hearts beating in the same body, one trying to dominate while the other tries to seduce.
The Art Deco style immediately catches the eye: black, white, and gold, with sharp edges and clean lines.
The marble and limestone buildings rise so high they look like stairways to the clouds, their facades crowned with gleaming metal spires.
The smooth, fluted columns overshadow lush groves of beech and magnolia trees.
Between the large, expansive windows, panels of stylized sunbursts and zigzags glow like veins of gold.
Art Deco is too pristine and polished for my taste, almost authoritative. The chrome reflects the light of the world like the guillotine blade reflects our blood.
I prefer the university’s softer side, designed in the Art Nouveau style.
The smooth, organic lines of the buildings flow like vines, bending and twisting in fluid patterns that seem to move with you.
Wrought-iron railings border every terrace, their swirling patterns adorned with roses, jasmine, and ivy.
The walls are covered in mosaics of floral tiles—blues, greens, reds, and yellows—that seem to blush as you pass by.
To me, Art Nouveau gives Grandmaster its soul. The way it blooms like a bright, welcoming flower makes me feel this place isn’t just for the high-citizens; it’s for all of us.
The train descends onto a track that winds through the mountains. I crack the window and breathe in the salty coastal air. The smell of Irasbis Gas on my dress isn’t as irritating as before. Maybe it’s fading, or I’ve just gotten used to it.
Charlotte exits the lavatory and joins Dickie and me at the window as we approach the university’s border wall.
It’s fifty feet high, with a main entrance on the east side.
After a quick security check, the border patrol allows us to pass.
We glide into the campus’s central train station, where fourteen other trains have already arrived.
Ours is the last. The campus accommodates seventy thousand people, thirty thousand of them students.
The rest are professors, Coppers, Pinkies, and other university personnel.
As soon as our train stops, the doors open to a flood of students. Greens, Oranges, and Purples spill onto the platform, heading to personal vehicles or the campus trams on the level below.