3. Alexander #2
He wonders if the Academy is like pre-Fall universities. He’s only seen the carcasses of old colleges, so the tiny part of him that still has energy for it is kind of excited to see what the place looks like.
“Do they teach you about the city’s organization in the countryside?” Bios asks after a sip of coffee.
“A bit. Though now that I’m seeing it… the Arc separation is pretty intense, huh?”
Bios winces. “You can definitely tell which Arc you’re in, I’ll say that much.
The class separation isn’t exactly purposeful—the Arcs are differentiated by occupation, not by wealth.
But, as you can imagine, some jobs are more lucrative than others and the further up you get the more power there is. Reform would be nearly impossible.”
“Aren’t you a Councilman? You can’t do anything?”
Bios shakes his head. “The Council of Kings are lawmakers, upholding Justice. We don’t have power over economic organization, only maintaining order.”
“How wonderfully immoral of you,” Alexander quips, before remembering that he is making fun of one of the actual leaders of this city. It’s time to put a lid on the sarcasm.
It’s just strange to him, such intense class separation.
The Holy American Empire isn’t communist, but the ‘love your neighbor’ concept is taken so seriously that wealth mostly redistributes itself.
He wishes it were because his country is full of kind, giving people, but he’s pretty sure they just fear God’s wrath too much not to do good.
Bios shrugs and responds, “Entirely. I’m not saying I don’t want to fix it. Or that I haven’t tried. Just that it’s not my jurisdiction. Morality isn’t Justice.”
Alexander hums again and his eyes drift to the surface of his coffee, which mirrors his face back to him. His hair is a mess. Ugh.
When he looks back up, Bios is sliding a steel ring off his index finger. He lays it on the table and then, from the ring, a small screen and keyboard project in front of Bios, and he starts to type.
Alexander stares incredulously. This is more than a tablet. This is technology so advanced that pre-Fall nations never made it, and they created everything they could think of to stay in the race to the top.
Bios must take his stare to be one of offense because he explains, still typing, “Sorry, kid. Just letting Zeno know where we are.”
Once Bios has sent the message and slipped the ring back on, Alexander asks, “Zeno?”
“He’s your new roommate. You’ll get along well, I think.”
His life right now is a nightmare, but somehow that is the most ludicrous thing Alexander has heard yet. He’s a prince. He lived in a castle. He’s never had a roommate a day in his life—not even his twin brother.
Maybe his irrational side is kicking in because he wants to cry.
Instead, he exclaims, “Can’t wait to meet him!”
He isn’t sure he could sound faker if he tried.
“Good,” Bios says, nodding to Alexander’s coffee. “Now, finish that and then we’ll keep going.”
“Yay. More stairs,” Alexander says, and so much for controlling the sarcasm.
“Best part of my day for sure,” Bios jokes.
Alexander gulps down the last half of his coffee in one sip. “But really, why all the stairs? You must have the technology now for a more advanced system.”
“I think it’s about power,” Bios says. “The Producer Class lives down here, and looming over them is the Academy, where Auxiliaries and Guardians work to protect and uphold Justice. To get from the bottom to the top is nearly impossible. Like the Academy is watching but unreachable.”
“To get from the top to the bottom is easy, though. You just need to be pushed,” Alexander counters.
“That’s truer than you know.”
The coffee is helpful for all of ten minutes before Alexander begins to wish he really had drowned.
Bios was right when he said it’s about power; Alexander can’t imagine starting at the bottom.
You simply wouldn’t make it. And every step would be a reminder that you’ve moved further than you belong.
They pass a very well-kept Arc—the First Arc, he presumes—full of sprawling estates and egregiously wealthy-looking people. The only thing this Arc has in common with the third is the steep, winding streets that keep the neighborhoods on a slant to match the stairs.
He’s so used to the steps that when he reaches level ground, he lifts his foot as if to ascend more and falls onto his face.
“Aargh,” he groans.
Bios laughs somewhere above him.
“I’m never using stairs ever again.”
“Oh, buddy. Auxiliaries have patrols once a week in the Arcs, and they always use the stairs.”
Alexander’s ears perk up at the mention of patrols. So he’s part of the law enforcing body? Like a Keeper of the Faith at home.
But also stairs.
“No,” he whines.
And with that he realizes he has grown far too comfortable with Bios. He only just met him and he’s already acting like his usual, childish, obnoxious self.
It’s just that Bios reminds him painfully of his father—humor sharp as a blade and a million-watt smile if you can earn it. God, he misses his father.
“It’s worth it to be up here. Just turn around and you’ll see what I’m talking about.”
Alexander pushes himself up and turns and—
“Whoa.”
The rest of the city was too packed with buildings and trees to see anything beyond the street he was on, but the last few hundred stairs just wind up a sheer cliff. And from here, at the top, with nothing in the way...
The whole city. He can see the separation of the Arcs because the air is so clear.
The sun setting behind him lights the twisting stairs right through the middle, a heavenly orange, gentle even on his eyes, still raw from the salt water.
The ocean flanks the city, and grass and trees go on to the horizon.
He’s never seen anything so wonderful.
And, suddenly, all he wants to do is go home. But he wants home to look like this.
He wants his brother to see the view. He wants to push his brother down the stairs.
He wants his father to be here. He wants his father to rest in peace.
“Alexander?” Bios says, gently, from behind him.
Alexander bites his lip hard to bring himself back to the present, and looks over his shoulder.
“It’s overwhelming, huh?” Bios continues. “When I got here I swore I’d never seen anything more beautiful.”
“I don’t think I have either.”
“You will,” he assures Alexander, tone indecipherable.
Alexander doesn’t have time to analyze it. He stops focusing on Bios when he realizes what’s behind him. A tall hedge opens in an arch, revealing a green field that’s not exactly beautiful, but perfectly maintained. He thinks briefly about Bios’ commitment to order.
A marble pathway cuts through the lawn, leading to a building like nothing Alexander has ever seen. At least not in person.
It’s incredible—an intimidating, Acropolis-like structure, backlit by the orange sun. Probably a spin on classically Ancient Greek architecture, with three distinct sides forming a triangle and a small glass pyramid at the top where the roofs meet.
The columns across the front side are covered in the curling branches of orange trees, somehow forced to grow coiling around them.
“It’s huge, I know. The Academy doesn’t do things in half measures,” Bios says, leading him through the monstrous hedge.
Expansive grounds on either side of the building come into view with droves of people in matching uniforms—some early teens, some late twenties, most in between—inhabiting various meeting spaces or sitting in the grass.
Outdoor amphitheaters and exercise spaces are dotted throughout the lawn where students sit in lectures and discussion circles, or do an assortment of physical activities.
A few groups meander around the lawn or sit with friends, but the conversations he overhears are philosophical debates more than chitchatting.
There are no games or play-fights or laughter like you’d expect from students this age. Just order.
It’s his brother’s wet dream. He’s always loved structure.
It’s Alexander’s worst nightmare. He’s always hated it.
He and Bios get the same reaction from every student they pass: a glance, a look of surprise, and a forced dismissal before they lower their voices and return to their discussions.
Bios did mention people as old as him don’t get pulled up often, so that might be why he’s being gawked at, but he also knows that he looks a mess.
To be fair, he’s climbed an infinite number of stairs and, let’s not forget, been in a shipwreck today.
He’s really never going to get over that.
Bios reactivates his ring-screen thing, this time keeping it on his hand, and types out another message as they approach the building. It’s even taller up close, with a pleasant scent of orange blossom wafting around it.
He steps through the columns and into a roofed but not enclosed marble hallway that stretches at least an eighth of a mile on each side before making a sharp turn where the next face of the triangle begins.
Tall arches with curtains hanging down line its inner wall.
Alexander suspects that if they were opened, they would reveal a courtyard.
Standing directly in front of him are towering, dark-wood doors covered in hundreds of carvings and symbols—a three-headed beast writhing under the grip of a man and a lion, a line divided into four unequal parts, a ship battered by waves—but the most prominent of them is the one he saw on the back of that boy’s tablet in the Third Arc.
A circle with two crescent moons inside of it.
The wooden doors open with a loud groan, and a young man who looks startlingly like Bios steps outside. He’s already smiling when he leaves the building, and his smile only brightens when he sees the two of them.
“Councilman,” he calls, performing an obnoxiously low bow.
Bios rolls his eyes fondly. “Hello, Zeno.”
Zeno bounces up, grin right back on.
“So what’s the deal, sir? You were so cryptic in your messages,” he asks, leaning against the marble wall next to the door and then pushing off of it immediately because, “Forms, that’s cold.”