

# Song of the Slayers

# Verses 1-3

## By Pedes Cardinalis

## Table of Contents

Prelude

The Prince

The Knight

Verse 1

Jak

El

Alex

Janis

Verse 2

Ren

Alee

Alburt

Joosef

Jak

Verse 3

Ω-17

Rojr

Joosef

Alburt

Kaala

Appendix

Spelling in Song of the Slayers

Contact the Author

##  Prelude
###  The Prince

The Prince sat behind his large, empty desk, intently watching the screen which hung before him. A cup of coffee sat steaming and forgotten just beside his folded hands, almost invisible in the darkness of the room. Outside the door, there was the faint murmur of his guards conversing. He did not hear them, however, as he was focused solely on the image of a man who was broadcasting his speech to the entire world.

"The State is doing everything it can," the man on the monitor droned, "to find and destroy these terrorists. Rest assured, they will not be able to hide forever." He paused to take a sip of water from the paper cup on the podium, and the Prince grinned with his lips pressed tight together. He did love irony.

"I promise you, the people of the world, that we will put an end to the Triumvirate and their reign of terror. Neo Terra has been suppressed before," that was true, he supposed, on a small scale, "and we will continue to suppress them until they put an end to their violent ways. They have shown themselves to be criminals, and we will treat them accordingly. Even now, we have the best men and women of the world hunting their leaders and growing ever closer to discovering them."

Now, that much was a flat-out lie. The best men and women were being wasted, sent out to butcher abused animals that had decided to bite back at the hand that beat them. It made the people feel safer that way, pretending that the true threat was something as manageable as a few beasts that could be slain with the weapons of men. How safe would they be when the fires came from below, and the world itself died?

The clock at the bottom of the screen read 21:34, and the Prince's attention was drawn back from his musings to the scene before him. This moment had been years in the making, and it was finally time to reap the reward of all his effort. Any second, now...

###  The Knight

The dial ticked forward to 21:35, and the Knight murmured into his headset.

"Falcon One, this is Lancelot. Do you have a clear shot?"

"Copy that, Lancelot. Permission to fire?"

"Granted. You may fire when ready."

"Copy."

There was a glint from above, and the Knight's jaw clenched instinctively. He changed the channel on his headset as a thunderous crack rang out, sending the crowd around him into a frenzy. In the corner of his eye, he could see Chief Executive Cain sprawled on the stage, a bleeding attendant lying next to him. The expression on Cain's face quickly shifted from confusion to fury, and the Knight spoke his orders quietly from behind his visored helm.

"Falcon Two, kill the lights. Falcon Three, give us some fireworks."

A pair of voices spoke their confirmation, and he rested his hands on his hips as inconspicuously as he was able. Darkness engulfed the large chamber, and a moment later there were thin beams of light cutting through it as security personnel scrambled to make sense of the situation. Before they had that chance, however, a ball of fire erupted from beneath them. Bodies flew in every direction, and screams of panic and pain filled the air.

The Knight activated his helmet's night vision with a click of his tongue, and the scene before him was chaos. Masses of confused bodies pressed against one another in an effort to escape. Armed men lay broken and bleeding on the ground, flung violently by the explosion. He could not find Cain right away—not until the body covering him as a shield lifted itself up. An electric glint passed briefly over the body's eyes, and she flipped open a spring-loaded knife branded with a very distinctive mark.

A Slayer.

Dashing forward, the Knight drew a weapon of his own—an extendable baton buzzing with electricity. The Slayer turned and intercepted him, driving a knee into his gut as she parried his strike. Grunting, he managed to stay on his feet and avoid a jab meant to pierce the gap in his armor just below the armpit. Her blade skidded of his carbon-based plating, falling just short of its mark.

A witless good Slayer.

She pressed forward, and he was forced to give ground to the small woman. Her blows came harder and faster than anyone of her stature should have been capable of, and it was all that he could do to keep her from piercing every gap and gasket his armor had. A name flashed across his visor as his helmet's computer finished identifying her: ABIGAAL WATERS.

Amoebic, witless, simple fool, he cursed to himself. How could he have not noticed her name on the guest register? Such a simple mistake, and now it would cost them the day. She continued to press him further and further away from his prize, and nothing he could do would allow him to get by her. She was too fast, too strong. He could see more Slayers pushing their way out of the crowd and rushing to the stage. There was no way he could have missed that many names—someone had known they were coming.

"This is Lancelot," he said bitterly. "All units, fall back. Exit strategy three."

The other Slayers reached him as he finished issuing his orders, and one of them foolishly ran between him and Waters. With their leader momentarily cut out of the fray, their fates had been sealed. The Knight whirled about in a flurry of crackling steel, dropping the Slayers to the ground as their hearts spasmed themselves into oblivion. For the moment, at least, their seizure-wracked bodies kept him safe from Waters.

There was a thunderous roar from above, and the ceiling caved in with a deafening crack. The Knight glanced about, seeing that Cain had already been escorted away. Waters had left with him, it seemed. Scanning the still-twitching corpses surrounding him, he saw the names of men and women who had been barely tested at all—inexperienced fighters whose incredible potential had been snuffed out in a botched bid for power. It was always a shame to kill so much talent, but the taste of failure in his mouth only made the sight that much more bitter.

Steel chain ladders fell through the hole that had been punched out of the ceiling, and he grasped onto one of the rungs with a single hand. Two others joined him, with their final member nowhere in sight. It seemed that Joi had not been able to pull out quick enough. A shame—she had been a good markswoman. If Cain's aid hadn't seen the glare coming off of her scope, he didn't doubt that the Chief Executive would be dead now.

"Take us away, Falcon Four."

"Roger that, Lancelot." The ladders began to rise, the bottom rungs dragging against the cratered rooftop as Izee nudged the hovercraft forward. In the distance, he could hear the humming of similar vehicles starting up.

"How many with us, Lancelot?"

"We lost one. I'll man the ventral turret. Falcon Two, you take starboard. Falcon Three, you're port."

"Roger that," all three voices replied in unison. Omar and Peree went their ways, and he found the ventral shaft. Seating himself at the gunnery monitor, he made a quick scan of the ground below. It was a chaos of bodies and electrocars, with police trying in vain to create some semblance of order. He ignored the mess of confused civilians however, looking for the Chief Executive's distinctive vehicle. There were only public exits to the Globe 2.0: it had been built before the formation of the State, even if it had been later repurposed as a government building. And, if Cain hadn't left through the front entrance, then...there!

"I have a visual on Cain. Sending you the targeting information now."

"Got it. Should we pursue?"

"Affirmative. Let's light up this clod once and for all."

Izee crowed in reply, swinging the ship around to tail Cain's transport. The Knight let loose a volley of lead, spraying the ground in hopes of striking one of the tires and causing the vehicle to crash. Its frame was made of carbon filament, making it impenetrable to most weapons, but the occupants inside could still be killed in a collision. He saw the electrocar start to swerve, but it quickly righted itself.

"Bogeys coming in at twelve o'clock—about twenty of them. They'll be on top of us if we don't divert course. Orders?"

The Knight grimaced. If he just had a little more time, then—no. Even then, this was still a lost battle. Cain's electrocar darted inside a tunnel, and was gone. So close.

"Sir? Ten seconds to firing range." Izee's voice was strained. Shutting his eyes and pressing against his temples with carbon-gloved hands, he responded.

"Get us out of here, Izee. He got away."

##  Verse 1
###  Jak

Jak Shipwright sat on the bus, surrounded and alone. Glancing down at the smartpad in his hand, he saw that they had nearly arrived. Looking out the window, he could see an enormous stone arch with the words "PINAKL AKADAMEE" engraved onto its face. He had to squint to make out the tiny logo at either end of the school's name, wondering why they had made it so small. Then again, he supposed, it was a school. Even an academy meant for Slayers would still be trying to cram some sort of literacy down their throats.

Feeling an itch on his arm, he scratched absentmindedly before remembering. Looking down at the steel plating which had replaced most of his skin, he sighed. They had told him that it would still feel like he had skin, but he hadn't expected it to itch quite as much as it did. The skin of his arms, legs, chest, stomach, and back had all been shaved away and replaced with a noncorrosive, nontoxic steel alloy. That had been almost five years ago, but he still found himself forgetting about his metallic shell.

Since the initial operation, he had undergone further augmentations, most of which he had done himself. He had had his skull walls thickened, and had additional steel plating fastened to the backs of his hands and fingers. There was a protrusion on the plate of each forearm which housed spring-loaded daggers, and what skin he had left was leathered through chemical submersion so that it wouldn't be torn to shreds by the plating constantly rubbing against it.

Even with all of that, he could tell that he was one of the individuals on the bus who was least qualified to be there. His augmentations had all been done in back alleys and abandoned workshops, and it showed. His plating was lumpy, uneven, ill-fitting, and marred with five years worth of wear and tear. His skin was nothing to look at either, he knew. It was dark and light in splotches, rough to the touch and slow to heal from injury. It cracked easily in dry weather, and keeping it properly moisturized took nearly an hour out of every day.

Sitting all around him were men and women with proper titanium or carbon filament prosthetics, eyes that glowed with computerlike intelligence, or—most intimidating of all—absolutely nothing that marked them as being different from any other person. Jak knew how to gauge the quality of cybernetics, but psychics were something else altogether. He knew it wasn't the same, but it seemed too much like magic to him. Less than 1% of the human race had any sort of psionic potential, and anyone who could get into Pinnacle Academy would need to be from among the best of them. Cybernetics were far more common—all you needed was the money or the skill, and a few weeks you could afford to spend in recovery after the operation.

There were almost sixty of them on the bus, one of four identical vehicles being used to bring all of the potential students to Pinnacle for testing. Rumor had it that only half of the applicants were ever accepted, which made things look very bleak for Jak's chances. The bus came to a silent stop, and he stood up with a mounting sense of dread. They were instructed to leave their belongings on board, which did nothing to calm his fears of being rejected after spending so many years working toward this goal.

They were all marched out of the bus and onto the courtyard's neatly trimmed lawn, organized into lines by last initial. Jak found the "S" line, and stood nervously in place. He jumped as he heard a finger tap his steely shoulder, and there was a hearty laugh that came from behind. Turning, he saw a man about his age, the only distinctive feature to his face being a ruby-red dot which rested squarely in the center of his forehead. The man wore a smile, and introduced himself with a slight drawl to his voice.

"You sure are twitchy. My name's Alex Shipper. What's yours?"

"Jak," he replied hesitantly. "Jak Shipwright. And yeah, I guess I am a bit nervous."

"Can't say I blame you," Alex said. "Things like this have a way of getting people worked up, especially with everybody here having all these fancy cybernetics. Can't say I've seen anything quite like yours, by the way. Where'd you get it done?"

"Oh, well, I um..."

"Didn't make them yourself, did you?"

Jak stood frozen for a moment, and Alex seemed to take his silence as a sign of admission. He let out a low whistle, and wrapped an arm around Jak's shoulder.

"That's mighty impressive, right there. It might not be the prettiest design, but I bet that body could take a shotgun blast and not even feel it. Almost makes me jealous—mine's pretty useless until I can get the hang of using it properly." He pointed at the dot on his forehead, and Jak raised his eyebrow questioningly. Alex winked and pointed at one of the girls standing several lines over. The clasp of her belt clicked itself open, and the skirt it had been holding up fell into a plaid puddle around her ankles. Her face got bright red, and she shrieked as she snatched at the fallen cloth. By the time she had hoisted it back up and refastened her belt, Alex had already turned back to face Jak.

"You can use telekinesis?" Jak asked the question with a touch of awe in his voice, and Alex shrugged in response.

"That's about all I can do with it right now, though. Some government cyberneticist wanted to try out an implant that simulates psionic potential, and he gave my parents a hefty sum to use me as his test subject."

"When was this?" And why had he never heard of such a thing? A psionic implant would have been wildly popular if it were available.

"It was a good three years ago, now. I was the only subject to survive, though, and even my results weren't really what he had been looking for. Not only can I not do much with it, but the thing gives me awful migraines, with aura and everything—I think he must have stuck it somewhere near the visual cortex."

"Oh. Well, that's...too bad." Jak had to force the words out. Not only did this man have an ability that was available to literally one out of every hundred people, but the only cost he had to pay for it was the occasional headache. And he still had the gall to complain.

One of the instructors approached the students, and began calling out names. She motioned for the students she had named to come forward, and they did so. Jak stepped behind Alex, and before long the instructor had reached their line.

"Seven. Alex Shipper. Jak Shipwright. Alasandra Springer. Janis Stromwell. Maa Sunflower. Suzin Swanson."

The indicated students stepped forward, and Jak looked curiously at the front of the line. He had heard some strange names before, but Seven? What kind of parent would name their child after a number?

"Welcome to Pinnacle Academy," said the instructor. "If any of the names I just read off are wrong, then let me know now. Better to fix it sooner rather than later."

A hand shot up at the front of the line, and Jak smiled in satisfaction. So, it had just been an error in the system.

"My name is Siirus, ma'am. Seven is only my designation number." Jak felt the instructor's frown appear on his face as well.

"I see. The other automaton made no such comment. Does it have a name as well?"

Automaton? Jak looked closer, and noticed a faint sheen covering the man's—no, the machine's—hairless skin.

"Yes, although he prefers not to use it. Our makers gave him the name Sparx. If it is any easier, you can leave my designation as my name." The instructor's frown turned into a tight smile.

"It's no trouble. I just wasn't expecting a—well, an automaton—to have an opinion on what it's called."

"That's a common reaction," the automaton said, its smile looking just slightly wrong somehow. The instructor paid it no more mind, and they were all told to return to their places while the rest of the role was being called. While he waited, Jak looked over the other applicants in line with him.

There were the automaton and Alex, but he was already having trouble remembering the names of the other students. If only he could afford a cognitive implant, he wouldn't be having this problem. Of course, his reinforced skull would only raise the price of such an operation now. Silently, he cursed his lack of foresight.

Trying not to let it bother him too much, he looked behind him and saw four women lined up, none of them with any visible signs of cybernetic enhancement. They were all psychics, like as not. Wonderful.

One of them saw him looking, and gave him a quick wink. For once, he was grateful for his appearance being what it was—his toughened skin was too thick to show the blood that rushed up to his cheeks. His eyes darted away before he could stop them, and he brought them back a moment later to see that she was still watching him. He stood still for a moment, not used to this sort of attention and unsure of how he should respond. Girls had always ignored him for being poor before getting his cybernetics, and afterward they had looked at him with wrinkled faces and upturned noses. After what felt to be quite some time, he extended his hand, feeling unspeakably happy as she took it in hers. When he spoke, he was completely oblivious to the grin which had spread across his face.

"I'm Jak. What's your name?"

Stupid. You just heard her name, and she heard yours before—now she'll know how forgetful you are.

"I'm Janis," she said. She had long red hair and big, brown eyes. Jak caught himself staring into them, and scrambled for something to say.

"So, you want to be a Slayer?"

Of course she does, idiot. Why else would she be here?

"That's right," she said in a songlike voice. "Studied martial arts all throughout school, so I figured I might as well put all that work to use." She struck a pose and flexed her chest, giving him a rather nice view for the moment that it lasted. Her neckline was lower than he had thought at first. As he had that thought, he felt something crash down on the top of his head. Wincing in pain, he saw that Janis had her arm extended, her hand resting on his scalp and a playful smile on her face.

"Don't go looking too much, Jak. We did just meet, you know." She ended that statement with a wink, although Jak was too embarrassed by having been caught to notice.

Rubbing his head, Jak looked down at his feet. "Sorry, I'm just not used to...ah...to dealing with..."

"Oh, come on. Don't apologize—I'm not that much of a prude." There was an offended quality to her voice now, but he was fairly certain that she was faking it. When she broke out into a grin once more, he decided that he was probably right. Smiling back at her, he felt himself relax. Janis motioned for him to turn around, and he suddenly became aware of the instructor's voice once more.

"Kaala Wheel. Kiil Wolfe. Mooree Wurster."

As Jak spun around, he saw the last of the applicants step forward. They stepped back a moment later, and the instructor raised her voice to address them all.

"You are all here, which makes you the best that humanity has to offer. However, do not think that any of you will be given your place in this academy. Each and every one of you is going to be pushed to the limit, and any who falter or fail will be sent home. Many of you will die during testing—like chaff being separated from the wheat. You may have heard the rumors that only half of the applicants here are ever accepted. I am telling you now that those rumors are false: out of the two hundred and thirty seven of you here, only forty will still be here by the time your testing is completed.

If any of you wish to leave quietly and spare yourself the hardships to come, we will not judge you. The busses which brought you here will remain until midnight—simply get back on and go home. Any of you who do not fear for your lives will be spending the night in the courtyard. You will receive further instructions in the morning."

With that, she spun on her heels and walked away. Jak looked around nervously, seeing others doing the same. Those busses were his last chance to get away. If he stayed the night, he would be pitted against all the people gathered here, vying for the few precious seats available inside Pinnacle Academy. Looking at the individuals around him, he was reminded once again of just how much better equipped than him they all were. Top-end cybernetics glinted in the sunlight, leaving purple blobs to float across his field of vision as he looked away.

A few others looked longingly toward the garage, and he was surprised to see that some of them were some of the more impressively outfitted people there. Janis was among those he noticed looking, and he took a step toward her. Reaching out hesitantly, he silently scrambled for an excuse to use if she pulled away. By the time he realized that he had drawn a blank, his hand was already resting on her shoulder. She looked at him, a conflicted look in her eyes.

"Nervous?"

She nodded, a hint of a smile creeping onto her face once more. After a moment's silence, she spoke.

"It's funny how you can be so excited about something for so long, and then get so nervous right before."

"I'm sure you'll do fine," he said. "You cracked me pretty hard on the head, so I feel safe enough saying that you're plenty strong. And judging from your looks, you're probably psychic, right?"

Janis grinned. "Actually, I'm pretty much the same as you."

"Oh?" Jak wasn't sure if he should keep pressing, but she continued before he had to make up his mind.

"My skin's been reinforced with carbon filament, just below the dermis. Makes me tough, but I also have to really watch what I eat. The stuff's not all that stretchy, and it makes weight-loss surgery pretty much impossible. I actually started bleeding internally once from spending a few weeks eating too much dessert. Not fun."

"So you're like me," Jak said, "only..."

Only what? Better? Tougher? Less ugly? How was he supposed to finish that sentence without sounding like he was looking for pity?

"Only you can replace your plating without spending hours in surgery," Janis provided.

"I was going to say yours looks better," Jak replied hastily. "It doesn't cover you up. I mean..."

"Aww, thanks." She leaned over and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. "Think I'll stick around after all."

"Well, that sure was fast." Jak spun around to find the voice's source, smiling so widely that his face almost cracked. Alex was standing behind him, his eye gleaming. Janis stepped up to him, looking Alex square in the face.

"You're the one who made that girl's skirt drop earlier, aren't you?"

"Noticed that, did you?" Alex reached a hand out to touch Janis, but she stepped away and snatched his hand in hers. The next thing Jak knew, Alex was on his knees and Janis had his finger bent back much farther than it should have been able to bend.

"Do that again," she said in a light voice, "and the finger breaks."

"Got it," Alex grunted. "Sorry. Won't happen again."

With her free hand, Janis patted him on the head. "Good. Oh, and if you ever embarrass that girl again, you might wake up one morning without the ability to reproduce. I hear she's pretty handy with a scalpel."

"Good to know," Alex said as she released his finger. He stood up slowly, wincing in pain as he tried to massage the base of his finger. Jak stood transfixed as Alex walked away, melting into the crowd of men and women now milling about the courtyard. Looking at Janis, he said the only thing that would come to mind.

"Remind me to never get on your bad side."

###  El

"That guy's coming over here," Aleeṡa said nervously. El looked over her friend's shoulder, spying out the man who had made Aleeṡa's skirt slip off just a few minutes ago. His shoulders were hunched like he was in pain, but that didn't make her any less wary of him.

"Let me talk to him." She stepped in front of Aleeṡa, feeling incredibly nervous as she did so. Resisting the urge to curl up into a ball as he drew nearer, she quickly looked over the approaching man. He was rubbing his hand as if he had hurt it, and a short glance at his face showed a scowl. Without meaning to, she shifted her feet so that she was standing at an angle to him.

She tried to keep herself calm as he walked toward her, but he kept looking at her. Her mind was running like a motor as it conjured up possible any and every scenario that could possibly follow. He could do something to Aleeṡa again. He could do something to her. He could start a fight if she tried to stop him. He would probably win a fight. She might get expelled for fighting. Could she be expelled before she was even accepted?

"Excuse me," he said, snapping her back into reality. "There's something I have to say to your friend."

Now what did she do? Did she say no? Yes? Ask what he wanted to say? Maybe—

—He put his hand on her shoulder to move her to the side. She flinched away, kicking at his shin reflexively. He yelped in pain, rubbing the sore spot on his leg. He glared at her, a hungry look in his eyes. Before she knew what was happening, she was on the ground, his legs straddling her on either side. He reached down, tearing open the buttons on her blouse—

—No. She was not going to have those thoughts. Especially not about someone like him. Even so, the narrative continued on in the back of her mind. In reality, he stood there expectantly, waiting for some kind of response.

"It's fine, El," Aleeṡa said. "Let him say what he wants."

She looked back at Aleeṡa, blinking in surprise. "Are you sure?"

"Thanks," he interjected before Aleeṡa could respond. "I just wanted to apologize for earlier. I was showing off, and it was stupid of me."

El tried to ignore his use of profanity, but it stuck in her head nonetheless, looping over and over again. Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid—stop!

"If it's okay with you," he continued, "I want to make it up to you somehow. If we're both still around after initiation, could I get you dinner sometime? I hear the food here starts to grate after a while."

"I get to choose when and where?" Aleeṡa asked with a coy smile.

"Of course," he replied in kind.

"Well, I suppose I can overlook your macho moment. Just don't let it happen again."

"Oh, I have no intention to." There was something in his voice when he said that—was it...fear? It sure sounded like it. But why would anyone be afraid of Aleeṡa? Not that she was complaining, but Aleeṡa wasn't exactly a frightening person.

"I'm Alex, by the way."

"Aleeṡa."

He thanked her, then walked away with a smile. When he was out of earshot, El turned to her friend, her voice shrill with incredulity.

"What just happened?"

"I just got a date," Aleeṡa said with a wink.

"Yeah, with a pervert! He already made you drop your skirt once—what if he does it again?"

"That's kinda the point, El—it's how dates work. You go out for the appetizer, and then go home for the main course."

"Do not tell me you find that man attractive." El started to follow her friend's gaze, then looked away when she realized that it was directed at the seat of Alex's pants. Well, that answers that question.

"He did seem like he meant it when he said he was sorry, though."

"You're not always the best judge of character, you know."

"I can look after myself, El. You don't need to worry so much—it's just his way of apologizing. And if I get a free meal out of it," Aleeṡa's face left no doubt as to what she really meant to get, "then that's all the better. You're never going to find anyone for yourself acting like you are now."

"I don't want anyone," she said. "People are confusing. I don't like them."

"Hate to break it to you," Aleeṡa said, "but you're a person, too. Hey, Ren!" Aleeṡa waved at the sea of bodies around them. "We're over here!"

A moment later, Ren emerged and immediately met El's gaze. Why did he always do that? He knew how much looking people in the eye bothered her—she had told him as much plenty of times before.

"Hey, there. What's up?"

He was still looking at her. He was smiling too, laughing at some joke he was keeping to himself. It was probably dirty—they usually were.

Boys. Wait, no—men. He was a legal adult now. What a terrifying thought. Anyway, he was still waiting for an answer.

"Aleeṡa's going on a date with a pervert."

"Really?" Ren's face lit up with overly dramatic joy. "When did I ask you out, and why on this blue ball of dirt did you say yes?"

"Not you, an actual pervert. He pantsed her in the middle of role call—I know you saw it." El felt herself growing frustrated. Ren was smart, but sometimes he was too busy being funny to remember it.

"Oh, him. Was this a mutual decision, or do I need to break his legs?"

Ren had a lazy smile on his face as he spoke, and El briefly had to fight the urge to throttle him. By the time that urge had passed, Aleeṡa was already replying. "No need to break anybody's legs, Ren. He apologized, and he seems kinda sweet."

El raised her eyebrow at that last bit, but she kept quiet. Aleeṡa already knew what she thought of Alex, and there would be time to fill Ren in later. There wouldn't be any talking her out of this, no matter how stupid it might be.

El's eyes darted toward Ren for a moment, and she saw that his face had contorted itself into some cartoonish expression of concern, curiosity, and acceptance all at once. He bobbed his head up and down in acquiescence, and turned to look El in the eyes again. To spite herself, she held his gaze for as long as she could stand.

"You found anyone interesting yet, El?" He posed the question to tease her, she knew, but that didn't stop it from having its desired effect. She looked at her hands as she spoke, trying to keep them from fidgeting too much as she did so.

"No. Were you expecting me to?"

"I can hope," he said with a mischievous grin. El sighed in response, shaking her head as she did so. He must have been spending more time with her father before they left—those two had gone so far as trying to set her up with another woman once. Which, considering that her parents were so conservative that some called them backward, showed just how much her lack of interest in romantic pursuits bothered her father. Realizing suddenly that she was wringing her hands, she made herself stop and tried to steer the conversation toward a less awkward topic.

"So, any idea what they're going to have us do tomorrow?"

Ren shrugged her question away. "Probably nothing too much. All that talk about people dying must just be to psyche people out—I imagine the State would shut down any school that killed its applicants, even if it is a school for Slayers. Whatever it is, we'll be fine."

The three of them continued to talk for almost an hour more before El's stomach began to rumble loudly, announcing her hunger to the world. Ren decided to help her look for food, and Aleeṡa stayed behind to look for more new faces to meet. Hopefully, the rest of her new friends wouldn't be of the same sort as Alex.

Weaving through the crowd of hopeful students, they struggled to make their way toward the complex of buildings that neighbored the courtyard. When they had broken free from the sea of people, it was a quick walk to the nearest building. The front door was locked, however, as were the doors on either side. The same went for the next building they tried, and the next one after that as well. Apparently, Pinnacle didn't want to feed its potential students on the day before their entrance exams. Because that made perfect sense.

"If you don't mind walking a little more," Ren said, "I saw a diner on the way here that didn't look like it was too far."

"I don't mind walking, but maybe we should get Aleeṡa to come with us. She has to eat sometime, too."

Ren agreed, and she pulled out her smartpad to call Aleeṡa. Her friend's face lit up at the mention of the diner, and she asked if she could bring along a few of the people she had met. As much as she wanted to say no, El decided that being social for little while probably wouldn't kill her. Probably.

"Fine. But if you bring that pervert with you, I'll make sure Ren actually does break his legs." When she hung up, she saw Ren looking at her with a glint in his eye.

"You're not jealous, are you, El?"

"Quiet, you," She snapped back at him more harshly than she had intended. Her cheeks felt warm, and they only grew hotter the more she became aware of them. Why was Ren so good at pushing her buttons?

After what felt like forever (but was actually closer to twenty minutes), Aleeṡa arrived with about a dozen people in tow. When El saw her, she cocked her head in mock surprise.

"I thought you said you were bringing a few people," she called out as Aleeṡa got closer.

"This is a few," Aleeṡa replied. "A few fews. That's not a problem, is it?"

"It shouldn't be," Ren said. "The diner looked pretty big to me."

"Well then," Aleeṡa said with more exuberance than the situation deserved, "let's eat!"

Their caravan of hungry students-to-be headed toward the diner with Ren leading the way, and El sticking close to his side. Aleeṡa was chatting with the people she had brought along, and she had no interest in getting involved in that. The whole point of her wanting to be a Slayer in the first place was to be able to help people without having to actually deal with them.

After taking them on several wrong turns (despite having the aid of his smartpad, as well as El's advice against taking any "shortcuts"), Ren finally got them to the diner. There was a single man standing watch over the counter, wearing a chef's hat. His eyes grew wide as all fifteen of them poured through the door at once. Realizing that it would be a while before anyone's food was ready, El stepped to the side and let the others order ahead of her. Ren did the same, and he looked at the group of men and women swarming the lone cook with a strange smile on his face.

"What are you smiling at?" She asked the question only half expecting to get a serious response.

"You ever think about how strange it is that both you and Aleeṡa want to become Slayers?"

The question caught her off guard. From Ren, she had expected either some glib one-liner or some simple, stupid answer like one of the girls having bent over far enough for him to see what kind of underwear she had on. He turned to look at her, which she supposed meant he actually wanted an answer.

"It is strange," she admitted, "but not that much. I know I'm nervous around people, but most Slayers spend lots of time in the wilderness, away from other people. And as far as Aleeṡa goes, she wants to be a medic—she'll be fixing people up, not killing things."

"And you're okay with killing things?"

"No less than you are," she retorted. There was a flash of amusement in his eyes, and Ren matched her indignant tone.

"You're not any more okay with it than I am either, though. You lie the same way I do—I can pick up on it, you know."

He really wanted to have this conversation now? El looked at the floor as she answered, not bothering to try and stop herself.

"I should be fine killing mutants. It's not like they're going to make us kill people."

"What if they do?"

"Then I'll figure it out then," she snapped. Ren flinched, and she suddenly felt sorry, which was quickly followed by a flash of anger. He brought it up—why should she feel sorry for answering his question?

"I guess that's fair enough," Ren said. Standing up, he approached the now-empty counter. He placed his order, and El waited until he was done to go up and do the same. She didn't say anything when she sat back down, and made a point not to look Ren in the eye. They both remained quiet until their food arrived, and El dug into her meal with an unusual vigor. The sounds of chewing her food helped make the silence between them a little less evident.

When everyone had finished their food, they got up and left as they had arrived: in a loud, disorganized wave. Ren took to the back of the crowd now, but somebody had been paying enough attention on the way there that they managed to get back to Pinnacle without any trouble. When the crowd began to disperse, Ren approached El quietly.

"Sorry if I bothered you earlier," he said. "It just felt like the question needed to be asked."

"It did," she told him, "but not now. We've got our entrance exams tomorrow—I can't be worrying about orders that I might not ever get. Right now, I need to focus. And so do you."

"I guess you're right," he admitted. "At any rate, it's getting late. We should probably find something to sleep under."

El started to nod her head in agreement, then saw the look on Ren's face and took his advice for what it really was. Feeling her face turn red, she turned on her heels and stormed toward the garage more in embarrassment than anger. Ren seemed to be able to sense as much, and he followed her with a playful smile on his lips. They each retrieved a set of camping gear—which Ren had only agreed to pack after El had badgered him for days about needing to be properly prepared—and returned to the courtyard.

By the time they had finished setting up their tents, the sky was dark. The first few stars were coming into view, and El was quick to spot Mars among them. Ren bid her good night, but they both knew that neither of them would be sleeping much. Crawling inside her tent, El turned on her smartpad and scrolled through a virtual bookshelf that was hundreds of titles long. Only two meters away, she knew that Ren would be doing the same. Picking one at random, she began to read the night away.

###  Alex

Alex walked away from Aleeṡa feeling unable to believe his own luck. He had figured she would have turned his offer down after what he had done, but she had actually accepted! Which meant that she had not only forgiven him, but she was attracted to him as well. It was always nice when he could start off his time in a new place with a girl already there for him.

Of course, that only mattered if they both made it through the initiation. The instructor from earlier had made it fairly clear that most of the people here wouldn't last, and Aleeṡa didn't exactly look like she was all that tough. Depending on the format these tests took, he might be able to help her through them, but he supposed that counting on that possibility wouldn't be doing him any favors. Better not to get his hopes up too high, especially with so much time left ahead of him. If she did go home tomorrow, he would still have the next few days before classes to find someone else. Even so...

"Hello there," he said as he approached a cluster of girls chatting with one another. A few of them turned to face him, and he noticed that one of them had a metal band wrapped around the crown of her head. It was mostly hidden beneath her hair, but her bangs were pulled back in a way that gave a clear view of the silvery metal stretching across her forehead. The band looked uncomfortably tight—it was probably some sort of cybernetic. Nodding at her, he continued.

"I've never seen a headband like that before. Does it do anything, or is it just for looks?"

It does something.

The thought entered his mind unbidden, and was spoken in a distinctly female voice. Feeling the corners of his mouth turn up in a smile, Alex tapped the red bulb jutting from his own forehead and replied in kind.

I've got something just like it, he thought back. She raised an eyebrow in response, and he saw a mischievous look in her eye.

They're different, she replied. Mine only amplifies what's already there. Yours, however, is the only reason you are able to have this conversation at all.

I can't quite argue with that, he replied, but how were you able to tell?

"This band enhances my telepathic ability," she said aloud. "It lets me read people's thoughts, and it works especially well if they happen to be telepathic themselves. And I do believe that your own modification gives you more than just telepathy."

The other girls, now that they were aware of the conversation going on in front of them, turned and paid rapt attention to it. Deciding that repeating the same display of psychic power that he had used to impress Jak might not earn him any sympathy from them, he went with something safer. Spying a dandelion growing not far from where he stood, he silently ordered it to rise. It drifted slowly toward him, gently coming closer. Once he had guided it into his hand, he offered it to the telepathic girl.

"I can do a great many things," he said, "and not all of them have to do with being psychic."

"Thank you," she allowed as she took the flower from his hand, "but I'm not all that interested in someone with your...ahem...dimensions. I'm a telepath, remember."

At that, the other girls burst into a fit of giggling, and Alex felt his face burn. He opened his mouth to reply, but she cut him off before he had the chance.

"And I'm well aware of how much experience you have, so don't give me that 'what matters is what you do with it' silliness. You don't know what to do with it."

Well, this conversation was going nowhere. He hadn't even gotten to give his name, and now all of the women who were privy to their conversation thought he was under-endowed. Lovely.

"You don't need to give me your name either, Alex. I take it you're not very used to interacting with other psychics."

"You don't know it?"

The words came out of his mouth before he even knew he was saying them. She smiled, and he noticed a strange glint in her eye. It looked...artificial somehow. Could it be another prosthetic?

"Still confident enough to call me out on that slip-up, huh? Most men would have walked away by now, or else started shouting. Perhaps I'd be willing to overlook your less than stellar genetics. But wait...what's this?" She covered her mouth with both hands, feigning a shock that he knew she didn't actually feel. At this point, she was simply putting on a show for her friends.

"Aleeṡa? Sorry Alex," she said with a sense of finality, "but I'm not going to be your silver medal. Try again when you don't already have plans with another girl."

And just like that, their conversation was over. She turned back to the other girls, forgetting him completely. Sensing that trying to continue the conversation any further would only result in more embarrassment, he walked toward the campus in search of food. As he left, he realized that she hadn't given him her name.

It's A-17, a now-familiar voice echoed in his mind. You can call me Alee, though. Think of it as an apology for putting you in such a rough spot. Although you did kind of deserve it, looking for a backup date when you don't even know if Aleeṡa's going to pass or fail.

He almost tried to reply, but speaking aloud would only draw the attention of those other girls back to him once more, and he was too far away to be sure that she would receive any telepathic message he sent. He could touch the minds of anyone within about three meters with relative certainty, but anything beyond that and his chances of success dropped rapidly. Even with his top-of-the-line cybernetics and years of training, he was barely able to match a low-level psychic in terms of skill.

Instead, he simply continued toward the rows of buildings, noting that none of them had any lights on, despite the sun slowly dipping behind the horizon. That would mean, he supposed, that nobody was inside, which in turn meant that the doors would all be locked. Looked like he would be putting those low-level tricks of his to some good use, at least.

Approaching the building he took to be the cafeteria, he took a quick look around to ensure that nobody was watching. When he had made certain that he was alone, he placed his hand over the gap between the translucent front door and its metal frame. Stretching out his mind, he probed the airtight crack in search of the latch he knew would be there. Sensing physical objects was something he still wasn't used to doing—information came to him in streams of codified text, fed directly into his visual cortex by the Z-Em implant that had been drilled into his skull. He found an anomaly in the data which announced the presence of something solid, but not soon enough. Something clicked inside his head, and he knew at once that he would go to bed with a headache tonight.

Ignoring that thought for the moment, he held the latch's position in his mind and reached out with a psychic finger, pressing harder and harder until he heard a clacking sound coming from the door's edge. With a relieved sigh, he pulled the door open and walked inside. It was dark, but that was probably for the best right now. Any light would only make his migraine come even quicker, and it would be easier to find food if he didn't have to look through a veneer of scintillating lights while searching.

Stumbling blindly through the unfamiliar entryway, he found a set of stair and climbed up them. When he reached the top, a door stood waiting for him. He opened it and nearly tumbled back down as he was bombarded with the rays of the setting sun. The entire wall beyond the door was made of glass, and he had to look at the floor to keep himself from being blinded. Even then, he couldn't quite tell if the flashing lights he saw were afterimages from having his eyes stabbed mercilessly by solar rays, or if they were the beginnings of the aura which he knew would soon be appearing.

Once he had blinked away enough of the glowing blobs to actually make out where he was going, he found a door marked with a picture of an oven. Walking through it, he found himself stepping into what must have been the kitchen. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all made of ceramic, and there were rows of various cooking implements lining the walls. At the far end of the room, he saw a large metal door which he supposed led to some sort of refrigeration unit. After giving it a sharp tug, the door opened and greeted him with a blast of cold air. Shivering, he took a step inside while keeping his hand firmly pressed against the open door. Somehow, the idea of being trapped inside an industrial-sized refrigerator did not appeal to him.

Inside, he saw that the shelves loaded with frozen meats, raw fruits and vegetables, cheeses, milks, juices—enough food to feed an army, as far as he could tell. However, he didn't trust that door to stay open or unlocked long enough for him to head to the back and find something that looked especially good. Instead, he reached out for the nearest shelf, stocked with apples of every variety imaginable. He took one and placed it in his left hand while it was still pressed against the door, held a second in his mouth, and took a third in his right hand before stepping out of the chilly air and letting the door crash shut behind him.

He left the same way he came: down the stairs and out the front entrance. By the time he had left the building, he could see the true beginnings of the migraine. Liquid crystal pulsed with light in the corner of his eye, spreading slower than a snail but more steadily than the movement of the sun. He ate his apples quickly, knowing that he would be in no mood for eating soon.

By the time he returned to the courtyard, his left eye was all but useless. Letting the apple cores fall to the ground as he finished them, he decided it would be best if he set up for the night, despite how early it was. He staggered over to the garage with one eye open and retrieved his thermal blanket, a pillow, and a pair of butterfly knives. He didn't know exactly when the initiation would begin tomorrow, nor did he know what form it would take, but he did not want to be caught completely unprepared.

When he had spread out his bedding and tucked the knives safely away—one in his pocket, one in the pillowcase, and both tightly closed—the aura had largely passed. He could already feel the ridge along the top of his skull beginning to throb, and he tucked himself in, hoping that he would be asleep before the worst of it came to him. It would be gone by morning, at least; he knew that much from experience. These migraines came on quickly, and they left quickly as well.

When morning came, his headache was indeed gone. That did nothing to keep his ears from ringing however, as he awoke to the sound of gunfire. Drawing both knives in a practiced motion, he flipped them open as he jumped to his feet. Glancing about, he found the source of the noise and felt a wry smile spread across his face.

###  Janis

Janis watched as Alex approached the girl he had embarrassed earlier, feeling pleased with herself. It was funny how easily you could get someone to apologize with just a little bit of force. Well, certain people, at any rate. There were a few others here who looked like they would have fought back rather than suffer the embarrassment of being at the mercy of a seemingly unaugmented woman.

"Remind me never to make you angry," Jak said with more than a little awe in his voice. When she looked away from Alex's exchange to meet eyes with Jak, she was pleased to see that the expression he wore was not one of fear. Although, she supposed, she would have been surprised if a man as tough as Jak looked were to be scared away by something as small as her bending a man's finger. She gave him a smile and patted his shoulder, eliciting a dull thud as her flesh struck steel. Belatedly, she realized that he wouldn't be able to feel her touch through his plating. Well, it was too late to take back what was already done.

"I wouldn't say I was angry," she replied. "I was just making sure that I wouldn't have to fight to keep my own clothes on around him. Being naked's not quite as fun when you don't actually want to take your clothes off."

"Makes sense," Jak said. After a moment of thought, he continued. "Does that mean you weren't actually going to break his finger?"

"Oh, of course I would." The way his eyes widened at her words made her lips part in a grin. She could tell that Jak would make for some very enjoyable company.

"It wouldn't do for me to not follow through on my threats, after all. If he does try something like that again, I will break his finger. Then he'll get it fixed, and he'll think even harder before trying to do it again. No permanent harm done, and it just might save some girl a bit of embarrassment in the future."

After that short exchange, she realized that it would soon be time for dinner. When she asked Jak if he had brought any food with him, he replied that he had not. With a half-formed plan in mind, she decided to drag him away from the crowd of applicants and down the road to a restaurant she had looked up on the ride to Pinnacle. It wasn't much of a walk, and she was not disappointed when they arrived.

The outside had a rustic appearance, with walls of red brick and all the windows decked in deep green shutters. It was one of a handful of such shops left in the world, and it just so happened to be about twenty minutes' walk from Pinnacle Academy. Jak looked skeptical, but he followed her through the door and into the dimly lit dining area within.

The air was filled with smoke—or it looked that way, at least. Judging from the fact that she was not choking every time she breathed, it was probably some sort of optical illusion meant to give the place a more authentic appearance. There were lamps hanging from the ceiling, glowing yellow and bathing the small, round tables in warm light. The floor was sticky beneath her feet, and every time she took a step it sounded like somebody was chewing gum beneath the floorboards.

She and Jak were seated at one of the small tables by a man wearing a black and white suit. There was something on his neck that looked like a noose, but made of the same satin-like fabric as his sleeveless jacket. He handed them a pair of menus, which she was surprised and somewhat disconcerted to see were written using a very old form of English. Looking across the table, she saw that Jak was having just as much trouble as she was with the bizarre spelling. After spending a few minutes of trying and failing to decipher how anything was meant to be pronounced, she decided she would simply have to sound it out and hope she didn't look too foolish.

"I'll have the lass-ag-na," she told the waiter when he came by for their orders. He nodded and scribbled something on his pad of paper—actual paper, with an actual pencil—and turned to Jak.

"A small pepperoni pizza, please." He winked at her as the waiter wrote down his order, and she pretended to pout after they had been left alone again.

"No fair—you ordered something normal."

"You've never had lasagna before?" His voice sounded genuinely confused as he asked the question. Well, at least now she knew how to say the word.

"Nope. Never even heard of it until just now."

"Funny. It was a staple where I grew up."

"Where was that?" Italy, maybe? That was the sort of food that they served here, after all.

"Southern Canada," he said. Well, that was unexpected. "I lived in the slums at the tip of Ontario for most of my life, and moved down here a few years ago to try and get accepted at Pinnacle."

Janis leaned forward as she posed her next question, feeling genuinely curious. "If you grew up in the slums of Ontario, how did you manage to afford all that plating? There's no way that operation could have been cheap."

"I did some things I'm not proud of," Jak admitted. "Some drug running, some muscle work for people who didn't want to get their hands dirty. It was a pretty miserable life, but I did manage to get out of it eventually. Most of my friends back home weren't so lucky."

"That's...impressive," she said, struggling to find words to match the weight of what she had just been told. Her life hadn't exactly been a picnic, but this was something on a completely different scale.

At that point, their food arrived. She eyed the lasagna quizzically, trying to identify all of the layers. After only a moment's hesitation, she sank her fork into the mystery food before her and took a bite. Chewing thoughtfully, she decided that it was probably not something she would order again. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't really good, either. There were too many flavors and textures all at once—she couldn't make out what was what. She took another bite anyway, buying herself more time to think about how she could respond to what Jak had just told her.

The next few minutes were spent in relative silence as they ate their food, Jak practically inhaling the two-person pizza he had ordered. She felt a very brief pang of jealousy at his ability to eat without having to watch his figure, until she realized that his plating likely meant that he had to watch what he ate as well, if not to quite the same degree that she did. Re-sizing all that plating would cost money, and it sounded like that wasn't something he had a great deal of.

Jak finished well before she did, and for a while he simply sat there, watching her eat. She didn't mind the fact that he was watching her—if anything, that just meant that he thought she was worth watching—but the silence was almost unbearable now that his attention was solely on her. She finished the rest of her meal quickly, scrambling for the words to say when she was done. As she took her last bite, however, he spoke up instead.

"Sorry for putting such a damper on the mood; I'm not really used to this sort of thing."

"You didn't put a damper on anything," she said quickly. "I was just shocked to hear that you had done so much to get here. Everybody here's done something to earn their place, but your story sounds like something you'd see in a movie."

There was a small smile that touched upon his lips for a brief moment, but it was gone again almost before she could see it. She looked at his face, its roughness not nearly as noticeable in the murky light. She hadn't meant to come off as strong as she had, but it was true—he did seem like the sort of man you'd see as the hero of some action movie. He seemed a little shy for it, but that could just be that he hadn't broken out of his shell yet. With a story like his, that was probably a very thick shell.

"Well, I certainly don't feel the part," he sighed. "Everyone else I've seen here so far has some sort of high-tech cybernetics or psychic ability, and all I've got are some metal scraps screwed onto me by some back-alley quack of a surgeon. Honestly, I'm amazed I didn't die of infection—I'm not even sure he sterilized his tools before working on me."

Janis cocked her head in confusion. "Doesn't that just show how much better you are?"

"I'm not sure I follow you," Jak said.

"Everyone else got what they have through luck, whether it's in their genes or their parents' bank accounts. You had to work for what you have, and from the sounds of it, you didn't get any help along the way. You made it here even without luck on your side, which is something that not many people can say. If anything, the fact that you're here at all proves just how skilled and determined you really are."

"Sure you're not just saying that to make me feel better about my chances?" Jak's eyes held a spark of joy, barely visible in the mire of self-depreciation that covered his face. Putting on the brightest smile that she could, Janis continued.

"Of course I'm not just saying it. It must have taken a lot of determination for you to get where you are."

At that moment, another customer entered the restaurant. As he swaggered toward the waiter and asked for a table, Janis recognized him from among the other applicants. Thinking back, she recalled his name: Mooree Wurster. While she was trying to decide what to make of his grandiose bearing, he followed the waiter past their table and casually brushed his hand against her breast as he passed.

Bristling, she made herself stay still. Normally she would deal with this herself, but Jak seemed to need a bit of a boost in his self-esteem at the moment. She met his eyes, silently asking him what he was going to do. Taking her cue, Jak reached out and grabbed the other man by the wrist. When Wurster looked down at him, Jak stood and met his gaze with far more confidence than he had been showing just before.

"Sorry," Wurster said with a sardonic grin. "I hadn't realized she was yours. She seemed to be the type of woman interested in men who didn't just come off of an assembly line."

"I'm sorry too," Jak replied with a ragged edge to his voice, "but I'm not much for jokes. Care to explain yours?"

The waiter's face was painted with concern, and Janis couldn't say that she blamed him. She had hoped that Jak would do something, but this was about to get very much out of hand. Still, there was no turning back now. Watching the scene unfold before her, she sat at the edge of her seat in case this Wurster turned out to be tougher than he looked. His smile was unbroken as he looked Jak in the eye, his voice dripping with condescension.

"I meant that somebody made of scrap metal has no business entertaining a human being."

"You want to go outside and see what this scrap metal can do?" A serrated blade sprang out from Jak's wrist, and somehow Wurster managed to not even blink. Instead, he calmly peeled Jak's hand from his own and turned away, talking over his shoulder as he walked off.

"I came here to eat, not to play with toys."

Jak looked ready to stomp after him, but Janis grabbed him before he was able to. Anger was written plain on his face, but he did sit down. The waiter was very quick to bring them their bill, and they left the restaurant without any further altercations. On their way back to Pinnacle, she could see Jak fidgeting nervously.

"What's on your mind?" Her question seemed to snap him out of whatever thoughts were bothering him, and he paused a moment before answering.

"Do you think I'm ugly?"

"Not at all," she said. "If anything, I think you look pretty neat. You remind me of a tank."

There was a strange look on his face, one which she couldn't quite identify. She probably could have said that in a better way. As the academy came into sight, she heard Jak voice another question.

"He didn't hurt you, did he?"

"Hardly," she said. "It just bugs me when I meet a man who thinks he owns every woman on the face of the earth. With any luck, he'll be one of the ones who fails out tomorrow."

He dropped the subject after that, which was fine by her—men like that weren't worth the breath it took to discuss them. The sun had already sunk behind the skyline by the time they were back on campus, and most of the students had set up makeshift bedspreads for themselves on the green. Going to the busses with Jak, she retrieved the single blanket she had brought with her, as well as a plush turtle which she supposed would have to do as a pillow. It was certainly big enough—she could barely wrap her arms around it—but she hated to get it dirty. Finding a machine large enough to wash it properly would be a pain.

When she noticed that Jak hadn't taken anything from his luggage to use as a bed, she asked him why that was. His response, as she had figured it would be, was that he hadn't thought to bring anything. She couldn't really blame him for that—she had been expecting to sleep in a bed tonight as well, and she had only brought the blanket and turtle for sentimental reasons. At any rate, his lack of foresight provided her with an opportunity.

"Well, we can't have you sleeping without anything to cover you up. It's chilly at night, and you don't want to have a runny nose for whatever's coming tomorrow. If you want, you can share with me."

Jak's eyes widened, and she imagined that he would be blushing right now if he could. She could feel her face turning hot as well, but there was no use beating around the bush. There was no guarantee that they would be able to see one another again after tomorrow, and Jak was a very likeable guy. He still didn't seem to have completely come out of his shell, though. He stood there working his jaw, clearly unsure how to respond.

"We wouldn't be doing anything, obviously." She gestured to the applicants lying on the ground all around them. "I just figured that you'd be more comfortable not freezing alone in the cold."

"Well, I...if it's okay with you, then I guess...sure?"

"Great!"

She spread the blanket on the ground and plopped down on top of it, patting the spot next to her invitingly. Jak sat stiffly beside her as she positioned her plush-turned-pillow where she planned to lay her head. After everything had been settled into place, she reached for the corner of the blanket and pulled, folding the quilted patchwork so that it would cover them both above and below.

As they lay beneath the starlit sky, she noticed that Jak had positioned himself at the far edge of her ad-hoc bed. He didn't complain when she squirmed closer, however. In fact, she was pretty sure that he might have moved himself ever so slightly in her direction. It was small, but she supposed that it was all she could expect from someone like him. By the time she fell asleep, she could feel the metal of his arm slowly warming as it lay carelessly across her side, its owner snoring loudly. Then the dream came.

The sun was low in the eastern sky—morning. She stood alone among a crowd of faceless bodies, stretching out for kilometers in every direction. In the midst of them, she saw a familiar face. Chasing after him, she took Jak's hand in hers and smiled brightly. He turned and smiled back, his face unblemished by the cracks and wrinkles in the leathered skin he wore in waking life.

That thought reminded her that she was dreaming, and that realization frightened her. She did occasionally have lucid dreams, but those dreams were not truly hers. They were visions—her subconscious peeking into the future and teasing her with hints of what was to come. The only thing they had ever told her of was a coming death.

Fire came up from the ground, swallowing the crowd which surrounded them. She tried to run, but the fire was everywhere. Left, right, forward, back—it rose higher than she was tall, and smoke blotted out the sun. The grass underfoot crackled as the flames grew nearer, and she flung herself at Jak in a desperate attempt to find some protection. The fire reached them, and Jak disappeared beneath her arms. The world was dark then, everything so black that she could not even see the darkness.

Janis was jolted awake, heart racing and skin pouring sweat. Looking about wildly, she saw that it was morning. Everybody else in the courtyard was just as shocked as her, and it took a moment to realize why. They had been woken by the sound of a pistol being fired, and the woman holding that pistol stood in their midst wearing a gray blouse and skirt, sporting the image of a shattered fang—the symbol of Pinnacle Academy—over her left breast.

"Good morning," she said, somehow speaking loudly enough to be heard across the courtyard without actually shouting. "I hope you all had a restful night's sleep, because your initiation begins now."

Jak sat up beside her, rubbing sleep from his eyes. He had said he grew up in the slums, but did a pistol shot really not wake him up any more than that? She had a sinking feeling in her gut, although she could no longer remember why.

"Your first test will be a simple one: find your way out of the courtyard. But before you begin," her voice sharpened, stopping several applicants who were eagerly rising from where they had been sleeping, "this academy was built over a battlefield from the third World War. This courtyard, in particular, was once a minefield. The mines here are normally inactive, but they have been activated and will remain active until everybody here has completed their test. Obviously, this test is pass or fail—you either make it out alive, or you don't. You may use any means at your disposal. That is all."

What?

Janis looked at the woman incredulously as she strode past her, zigzagging through the students seemingly without a care. Jak still didn't look completely awake, and she couldn't help but wonder if he had even heard any of what they had just been told. If he had, he would be as shocked as she was. Right?

There was a deafening sound, and Janis whipped her head around to face its source. A cloud of dirt erupted from the ground, and a body flew through the air. She was suddenly pressed to the ground, and she felt something hard and flat pressing against her back. The weight was lifted a moment later, and she turned to see Jak, ready to pounce again if need be.

<Are you okay?>

Her signing was a bit rusty, but she still understood what Jak had asked. She started to speak a reply, but suddenly realized that the screeching sound she heard was not a cacophony of screams, but the ringing of her ears. Shutting her mouth, she nodded.

<We have to—>

She wasn't able to make out that last word, but she thought she got the gist of it anyway. Jak jumped to his feet, and she followed suit. As he moved to step off of the blanket, she suddenly remembered her dream from the night before. Screaming for the deaf Jak to stop, she threw herself at him, catching his waist in her arm and twisting as she fell. When she hit the ground, she could feel the click beneath her. Before he had time to react, she pushed Jak to his feet and put all her strength into one kick, driving her foot into his steel-plated chest and knocking him to the ground. It would have to be enough.

Rolling to the side, she felt an incredible pressure well up beneath her. Time slowed, and she could feel each and every bit of sharpened steel as it tore through her skin, the pain alone threatening to kill her. The shrapnel itself wouldn't do the trick—her second skin wouldn't let that happen. It didn't stop the bleeding, though, and it didn't keep her fastened to the ground as all that pressure suddenly exploded upward.

As the world tumbled before her, she was suddenly able to make sense of her vision. Jak hadn't disappeared because he had been taken from her—it was she who had been taken from him. She fell to the ground with this realization still in mind, her deaf ears still hearing the sickening crunch of bones breaking as she tumbled uncontrollably across the green. Blood rose up in her throat, and she could do nothing to stop it. By the time her body came to a halt, she was already dead.

##  Verse 2
###  Ren

Fear.

Fear and pain.

Fear and pain and death.

Death.

So much death.

Ren clutched his head in both hands, trying to block out the torrential agony that surrounded him. It came from every side, bombarding his mind with the terror and suffering of each and every individual in the courtyard. His internal self was flayed with every heartbeat that was skipped, every body flung into the air, every bit of shrapnel cutting through the flesh of those nearby. He died again and again, falling from bone-shattering heights and spilling his guts on the ground from searing lacerations. It was chaos and death. It was fear.

After those first few hellish moments, the sense of panic suddenly grew smaller. It was only his own fear that he felt now, although he could still see men and women dying all around him. Realizing at once what had happened, he turned to find El standing behind him, her palm hovering above his head and her face taut with concentration. When she opened her eyes a moment later, he nodded gratefully. Looking around them, he saw that the pain he had felt before was very real and very present.

As the instructor had promised, they were standing in the middle of a live minefield. Bodies lay strewn across the ground, most of them not moving. Those that did move were doing so slowly, dragging themselves across the grass with broken limbs. Ren could see at least twenty dead, and twice as many injured. He couldn't hear a thing, but he was sure that it wouldn't have been any more pleasant a scene if he could.

El was safe for now, however, and so was he. Casting his gaze about, he found Aleeṡa amidst the chaos. She was covered in dirt and blood, but she was still standing. Snatching El's hand in his, he pointed to their friend. There was a brief moment of peace in her eyes, which was quickly overtaken by the panic of the situation at hand. They were all alive and well for now, but that could change with one wrong step. They were positioned more or less in the courtyard's center, and there was no way to see where any of the mines were.

In the heat of the moment, something clicked inside of Ren, and he began to formulate a plan. It was wrong and barbaric and it grated against him, but it would get them out of this alive. Looking for a nearby corpse, he found that there were none close enough for him to use. There were several injured who were only a few meters away, however.

Squeezing his jaw so tight that he swore he heard something crack, he pushed down all of his inhibitions and approached the body nearest to him—a man whose arm had been torn to shreds by shrapnel and was moaning weakly while lying in a pool of his own blood. His body tensed as he approached the man, the urge to survive battling against the deep-seated morals of his youth. This was a human life. This man could still be saved. But saving him would sentence Ren to death. It would sentence El to death.

Touching the man's head, Ren opened himself up to his suffering. He staggered beneath the immense weight of the man's pain, feeling as though he had just pushed his arm through a blender. The man was bleeding from his chest as well, Ren realized as he felt blood oozing from a phantom wound between his own ribs. Running a hand over his arm, he reminded himself that what he was experiencing was not his own pain, but that of the man lying before him. The man who would likely die so that he and El could live.

Drawing the man's pain into himself, he fell to his knees in agony. His eyes shut of their own accord, and when he opened them, he saw that he had fallen on top of the man. El was standing over him, concerned, and he stood up slowly. The man beneath him was now asleep, the momentary peace being enough to lull him into a state of unconsciousness. He would bleed out soon, and Ren knew that it would be at least partially his fault when the man died.

Now was not the time for sentiment, however. He had given the man peace in death, and that was all that he could afford to do. With a great heave, he rolled the man's body over and watched it flop lazily away from him. Not far enough. He looked at El, hating himself for involving her in such a morbid plan, but she nodded knowingly and crouched down beside him. They lifted together, and the man rolled once, twice—it would have to be enough. A short hop, and they were standing atop the injured man's body, searching for where their next step would take them.

There was a woman crawling in the grass, dragging the bloody stumps of her legs behind her. Suppressing a shudder, Ren leaped on top of her, his weight driving her face into the dirt. Her arms flailed about wildly, and she tried to roll out from under him. Without having time to think, Ren stomped down on the back of her skull, and felt her body go limp beneath him. El jumped after him, her face a mask of stony detachment. Good. There would be time for her to berate him later, but only if they both survived.

Their next few stepping stones were less gut-churning: they had reached a cluster of corpses, and hopped from one to the next without hesitation. They had almost reached Aleeṡa now, although she seemed to be working on an exit strategy of her own. After one last leap, they landed safely on Aleeṡa's bedspread. She was intently at work crafting a rope out of her pajamas, with her pants tied to her shirt leg-to-sleeve. The free sleeve was tied off at the end, and there was something large bulging out from beneath the fabric. When she had finished securely attaching her nightclothes, Aleeṡa hefted the mystery object and hurled it toward the edge of the courtyard. It landed with a muted thump, and Ren realized happily that his hearing was returning to him. It still sounded like he had cotton stuck in his ears, but it was certainly better than nothing. Aleeṡa reeled her makeshift rope back in, dragging the bulge in her shirt across the ground.

"You," Ren said, just barely able to hear his own voice, "are brilliant."

Aleeṡa grinned at him, and walked cautiously along the path her primitive minesweeper had followed. Ren and El were close behind, and Aleeṡa tossed her shirt once again. This time, it was flung back into the air as the ground beneath it erupted into a shower of dirt and debris. Aleeṡa's ad-hoc rope was torn from her hands by the force of the explosion, and flew out of reach. Ren watched forlornly as the silken garments fell to the ground. Behind him, he heard a muted sound coming from El. Turning to face her, he listened as she repeated herself.

"If you give me a few minutes, I should be able to make something that can show us a safe path to follow. I won't be able to move while I'm working on it though, so you'll need to keep me safe until I'm done."

"Got it," Ren and Aleeṡa replied at once. El nodded, and sat down in the grass. Closing her eyes, she began to hum to herself. Ren could feel a chill suddenly come over him—she was drawing in the energy around her, and he was close enough to be affected. He let her pull what she needed from him, his empathic ability having already proven worse than useless in dealing with their current situation.

Most of the people still standing seemed to have worked out their own solutions to the problem at hand, and almost all of them were well away from El's still form. Even so, Ren watched intently for any sign of aggression. He didn't want El to be attacked—small as the chance of that appeared to be at the moment—but he also wanted to keep the image of Aleeṡa out of his mind for the time being. She had kept her underwear on at least, but her lack of clothing was still all too noticeable, and he really couldn't afford to be distracted right now. Later perhaps, but for now he needed to stay focused.

Focused.

Focused.

"Done," El said, her voice sounding clearer than it had before. Ren pulled himself out of the almost trancelike state he had slipped into, and looked around him. The ground around them was crisscrossed with a web of light, barely visible but distinctly there. Large, dark circles dotted the courtyard. Looking at his feet, Ren saw that they were positioned in the light, squeezed right between two of the unlit patches.

"The light's safe," El explained. "I designed the construct to feed off of whoever's in the area, so it should stay lit as long as there are enough people to keep it powered."

"You tied it off?" Ren only had a basic understanding of how El's constructs worked, but he knew enough to tell that was a good thing. If she had designed it to function on its own, she wouldn't need to focus on keeping it running.

"That's right," she replied. "Aleeṡa, you go on ahead. Ren and I have something we need to do first."

Aleeṡa looked confused, but she did as she was told. El looked Ren in the eye—an odd gesture, coming from her—and ran back the way they had come. Ren followed her, knowing exactly what she planned to do and silently hoped that they would not be judged on speed.

When they reached the spot where Aleeṡa had been sleeping, El snatched up her bedspread and wrapped it in a bundle beneath her arm. They kept retracing their steps until they came across the woman Ren had kicked into submission. He could see in El's eyes that she wanted to go back for the man with the shredded arm as well, but he shook his head.

"He's dead by now," he said. "We can still save this one, though."

El nodded, and he helped her spread the thick blanket on the glowing grass. The woman's body was heavier than it looked, but they managed to move her on top of it without too much trouble. After that, they each took an end and used the blanket as a gurney to carry the woman safely out of the courtyard.

By the time they had made it through the minefield, the woman's legs had bled through the blanket. Setting her down, they worked silently to staunch the blood as much as they could. El shouted for Aleeṡa, who appeared moments later and set about tending to the woman's wounds. She had Ren take off his pants—he had slept shirtless—and tore them in half, using each pant leg as a tourniquet. Meanwhile, Ren stood to the side and tried to will away the growing bulge as he watched. El, thankfully, was too busy not looking at him to notice.

"I think she'll be okay," Aleeṡa said as she stood up from her work. The woman's legs were now wrapped up in a cloth cocoon. "She'll need to get disinfected, though—there's no way that blanket's clean."

As if she suddenly realized she was almost completely naked, Aleeṡa crossed her legs and held her hands up to cover her breasts. Ren found himself losing the battle with his swollen twin, and scrambled for something to say to break the tension.

"So," he said, "we're both naked..."

"No," Aleeṡa interjected. El had spun around, her face a caricature of shock and disgust.

"How could you make a joke like that?!?"

"Well, it got you to look at me, at least." His comment brought a flush to El's face, and she looked away again very suddenly. Aleeṡa smiled amusedly.

"Don't worry, El," she said. "It doesn't bother me; I'm used to him by now."

It was nice to know that somebody was. He'd known El since they were still learning how to talk, and she still acted awkwardly around him.

"And speaking of...that," El said, "you two should find some clothes. People are starting to stare."

"Guess you're right," Ren allowed. "You coming too, or were you going to spend all day in your pajamas?"

"Fine," she replied. "But don't you dare look."

"Oh, so it's only okay if you see me naked..."

"I'm not okay with seeing you naked!"

That last outburst came out louder than El must have meant it to, and her face turned bright red. Several people nearby turned to look as they heard her, and Ren felt a smile that was only part embarrassment stretch itself across his lips.

"Hey, you made it!"

A man approached them, his eyes set firmly on Aleeṡa. Mentally preparing himself to do something stupid if the need arose, Ren watched as Aleeṡa's face lit up at the sight of their visitor. He relaxed slightly, but only slightly. Aleeṡa was a very trusting person, and it had gotten her into trouble in the past. Just because she knew this man, that didn't mean that he wouldn't try anything. Especially if he was the person Ren thought he was. And, judging from El's expression, he probably was.

"You look cold—here, take this."

The man removed his shirt and handed it to Aleeṡa, who accepted it with one arm still held tightly against her chest. When she had managed to get it on—an ordeal which eventually gave Ren several views which he had never really expected to get—the shirt was pulled taut across her chest and hung loosely everywhere below, dangling just barely low enough to reach the very top of her thighs.

Ren tried not to stare as the four of them walked toward the garage once more. El's glaring certainly helped, although he wasn't entirely sure why she cared if he looked—it wasn't as if she had any reason to be jealous, after all. Also, he got the distinct feeling that this man who had joined them actually did care about Aleeṡa, and he had no desire to start any trouble with him unless there was a reason to do so.

They were able to reach their destination fairly quickly, and they found that one of the four busses had gone. The other vehicles were all empty, but it only took a moment to locate where everything aboard them had gone. The far wall of the garage had been repurposed into a sprawling system of shelves, each stuffed with personal effects and labeled by name. Finding the pile labeled "MILLER, REN," he grabbed a pair of pants and a long-sleeved shirt. Not bothering to find anywhere to hide from prying eyes—nobody was all that interested in watching him get dressed, and it wasn't as if they would be seeing anything new if they did watch—he slipped into his clothes quietly.

Aleeṡa and El climbed into one of the abandoned busses, with El making a point to tell Ren and Alex (he had introduced himself on the way over) that looking into the bus would result in some very unpleasant things. Knowing El as he did, Ren didn't doubt that such unpleasantries would likely be very painful and very permanent. She was not one to be caught with her guard down, especially when that guard happened to be her pants.

When they stepped back out, the girls were both fully clothed. Aleeṡa handed Alex's shirt back to him, putting on a show of being sheepish, as if being lent his shirt was somehow more embarrassing than running naked through a minefield. He put the shirt back on, and Ren met El's eyes, seeing that she was trying very hard to stay silent about something.

"We should get back to the courtyard," Ren said. The others agreed, and they all returned together after taking a few extra things from their shelves. Aleeṡa had retrieved a pocket-sized medical kit, El stuffed a backpack with clothes and tools, Alex had something stuffed into the waist of his pants—from the shape of it, probably a gun—and Ren grabbed a pair of items for himself: a rope, and an extendable metal rod. They made, he thought to himself, a very interesting mix of people.

When they had returned to the edge of the courtyard, there were still a handful of applicants struggling toward safety. The injured who had already escaped were being carried away by medical personnel, much to Ren's relief. His ability to feel the pain of others had made him leery of being around people who were injured or sick.

Aleeṡa was looking forlornly at the few individuals dragging themselves through the grass, the glowing guidance of El's construct having faded away in their absence. Ren watched her, catching El doing the same. He weighed his options for a moment, knowing that El would be, as well. When she met his gaze, he could see in her face that she had come to the conclusion that he had hoped she wouldn't.

Wordlessly, El held her hands out in front of her, waving them as if she were shaping a ball out of the air. Actually, Ren reflected, that was more or less an accurate description of what she was doing. He couldn't see it, but she was shaping the energies around her, crafting some sort of psychic machine to suit her needs. Knowing what those needs were, he sincerely hoped that this was one of her more successful experiments. There had been times in the past when she had tried to heat a drink and froze it instead, or shredded apart an article of clothing she had meant to mend. The creation of psionic constructs was more of an art than a science, she had told him once, and sometimes artists simply got it wrong.

El took a step forward, her hands now still. They hovered atop some invisible sphere, and Ren could hear her muttering to herself as she walked. He followed her as she took a second step, and a third. Motioning for Aleeṡa and Alex to come as well, he was met with two opposite reactions. Aleeṡa's face lit up, and there was almost a bounce in her step at the mere thought of helping others. Alex, however, stayed put.

"We just got out of there," he said. "I'm not going back in—it's your own fault if you go and blow yourselves up."

The three of them went on without him, following El's invisible (and hopefully functional) guide. Ren scanned the area quickly, counting three bodies that were still moving. They were scattered, each of them bleeding heavily from ruined limbs or gashes peppered across their bodies. It was a morbid sight, and he had to fight his own mind to keep from reaching out to touch them. The memory of his loss of control earlier was still fresh, and he had no desire to repeat that experience so soon.

The first man's shoulder was mangled, his arm hanging limply by his side. All down the left side of his torso, his shirt was tattered and sodden with blood. He wasn't even able to move on his own—he just rocked from side to side, moaning in agony. His good hand clawed at the dirt, as if that motion alone were enough to drag him to safety. Aleeṡa went to work at once, tearing open the man's ruined clothing and exposing the wounds beneath. Taking a skin gun from her kit, she stopped up the bleeding. After that, she gave him a sedative and injected something into his shoulder which Ren didn't recognize.

As she finished, there was a cacophonous sound which set Ren's ears to ringing once again. Turning to face the source of the noise, he saw that another mine had been set off. The dusty cloud hung lazily in the air, hovering over two new corpses. After a moment, he was able to distinguish a scream from the sirens of his own ears.

"NOOOOOO!" Aleeṡa cried, falling to her knees. "We were so close! We could have helped, we could have—"

Ren grabbed her face with both hands, staring deep into her eyes. Opening himself up to the barest degree, he let her sorrow trickle into him as he spoke to her.

"Aleeṡa, now is not the time. We can cry later—right now, we need to get the one we still can help to safety."

His arms trembled, the weight of her sorrow slowly taking its hold inside of him. Aleeṡa's eyes were still filled with tears, but she nodded quietly. Letting go, he closed himself off once more. It felt selfish to make her suffer on her own, but her emotions were too strong for him to handle. Just taking the edge off of what she felt now was almost enough to reduce him to tears.

Picking up the man with Aleeṡa's help, he followed El back out of the courtyard once again. This time, they were met by a pair of figures wearing white medical gowns and airtight masks made of one-way glass. The attire of nurses had always unnerved him, and he still felt slightly put off whenever he saw those faceless masks. Between that and his natural empathy toward other people's suffering, he had spent his entire life doing everything he could to avoid going to hospitals.

Handing off the injured man to the two nurses, Ren took stock of their little group. El seemed to have shut herself off from the world around her, as she usually did when things got ugly. Her eyes were staring intently at the ground beneath her, and he thought he could see a tremor run across her frame. Aleeṡa looked dazed, her eyes glassy and her mouth just slightly open. Knowing that it would be all too easy for him to slip into that same state, he made himself move.

Finding Alex, he directed the man over to Aleeṡa. He might not be the most selfless person Ren had ever met, but Aleeṡa didn't need selflessness right now—she needed someone who cared. And, it would seem, Alex was more than ready to comfort her, wrapping his arms around her and whispering soft assurances as she finally let the tears come out. El would be the trickier one to deal with. He approached her softly, being careful not to touch her.

"It's okay," he said. "We're all safe."

"For now," she replied, her voice shrill. "That was part of the initiation. What did we get ourselves into?"

"What we already knew it would be. You knew I was lying when I said we didn't need to worry about getting hurt—I don't think there's any way someone could get here and not know how many people have died trying to get in. But we decided to come anyway, even with the risk."

That was the more palatable way to put it, anyway. In truth, she had decided to become a Slayer, and he had simply come along to try to keep her safe. Maybe he could talk her out of this now...

"I know," she said, "but I needed to say it anyway. Can't keep it all bottled up and let it distract me later."

Or she could say that.

"That was a quick turnaround," he managed. Before she could reply, the voice of the instructor from before echoed through the air.

"Congratulations to all of you who made it through your first test. If any of you are injured and have not done so, please direct yourselves to the nurse's ward. Again, if any of you wish to leave, there are still three busses remaining in the garage. You may collect your things and get on board if you desire—nobody will stop you. Your next exam, for those of you who still feel brave enough to stay, will begin in the courtyard at midnight tonight. You are free to do as you please until then, but anyone not here by midnight will be automatically disqualified. You are dismissed."

Ren looked around, but he couldn't figure out where the voice was coming from. It sounded as if it came from everywhere at once, and yet nowhere at the same time. He supposed it could be telepathy, but sending a message that way to so many people at once sounded absurd.

"So, did they shut off the mines?"

The question came from a man who was skinny, small, and pale. He stood with his shoulders hunched, and Ren had to take a second look to search for some sort of cybernetics. Most individuals with Trisomy Z—the genetic anomaly that granted Ren and El their powers—tended to be healthier than he looked. There were no obvious enhancements to his body, however, and he looked like exactly the sort of person Ren would not have expected to see at Pinnacle. Nevertheless, he had made it out of the minefield somehow. There was clearly more to him than met the eye.

"There's one way to find out," Ren said with a grin. He took the metal rod from his belt and twisted it on either end, causing it to expand to a length of roughly one meter. Twisting one end again, he made the rod double once more in length. Taking it in both hands, he swung down and slapped the ground at the courtyard's edge. When nothing happened, he struck the ground again and again, slowly making his way toward his tent.

"Ren!" El practically shrieked his name. "What are you doing?"

"Just checking for mines," he called out, sounding far less nervous than he felt. It had to be done at some point, but that by no means meant that he had to like it.

"Well, do it some way that won't get you blown up if they're still live!"

"I'm being careful," he replied. "This isn't any shorter than Aleeṡa's pajamas, and none of us got hurt when she set off that mine."

He continued to tap his way toward his tent, using his rod like some sort of overly exaggerated blind man's cane. Its tip dug into the ground wherever it landed, leaving dozens of tiny divots in its wake. When he had crossed almost half the distance to his tent, he felt the tension in his body begin to lessen. If he hadn't set off any mines by now, the odds were fairly high that they were no longer active. Even so, he didn't relax completely until he had reached his destination.

Opening the flap of his tent, he bent down to grab the smartpad, tossed carelessly to the side as he had fallen asleep the night before. Its battery was almost completely drained, but he pocketed it anyway. If nothing else, he would be able to find an outlet in the garage for it.

When he popped his head out of the flap, he saw El standing just outside, along with the man from before. Her arms were crossed beneath her breasts, and she was staring daggers at him. He should at least be grateful that she was looking him in the eye, he supposed.

"Why couldn't you just throw something into the courtyard? Or, oh—I don't know—let me check for mines like I already did before. Do you ever stop to think about what might happen when you do things like this? You can be so stupid sometimes!"

Of course I think first.

He kept from actually speaking his response, however. El wasn't the most approachable person at the best of times, but normally she was at least reasonable. When she was angry, however, that was something else altogether. Instead, he simply stood there silently, waiting for her to end her short-lived tirade as she always did. As it was, he didn't really have to wait at all—she clamped her mouth shut after that last exclamation, her eyes going wide as she realized what she was doing.

"Sorry," she squeaked. "I didn't mean to snap—it's just that that really was a stupid thing to do. I mean, it was...well, yeah, stupid actually fits that pretty well."

"He actually was pretty safe," the man behind her said hesitantly. "The mines all exploded directly upward, so he wouldn't have been caught in the blast. He might've gotten a scrape from a stray piece of shrapnel, but the only real risk would have been if he had set one off and not let go of the rod—it probably would have ripped his arm out of its socket."

Well, that bit at the end was certainly cheerful. Even so, Ren extended his hand to the man.

"Why, thank you, good sir. I'm Ren, in case you missed it earlier."

"Rojr," the man replied as he shook Ren's hand. His grip was loose and his arm was limp—an unusual thing to see in someone who wanted to become a Slayer.

"I'm sure it took more than just your keen observational skills to get you here," Ren said, hoping that Rojr would take the hint. He was disappointed, however.

"Thanks," the other man mumbled, looking off to the side. El was watching the two of them intently, and Ren could sense that whatever anger had overtaken her was all but completely gone now.

"So, what are you: psychic, or cyborg? If you don't tell me, I'm just going to assume that you have a bionic penis. Actually, that sounds kind of interesting. Maybe I should get one."

He chanced a look at El, whose face of disgust was all the answer he needed to that idea. It did make for an intriguing concept, though. But then, he supposed that creating a satisfactory level of sensitivity would be impossible for a cybernetic prosthetic. Oh, well.

"That's not it at all," Rojr replied with his eyes wide in terror. "I'm a psychic, but I—I'm not very good at anything in particular. I'm not really sure how I got here."

"Really? Well, that's a shame. I was hoping for something a little more exciting."

The look of confusion on Rojr's face was worth the withering stare he got from El, who he turned to face next.

"There anything you were going to grab here, or did you walk over just to slap my wrist?"

She muttered something about needing her smartpad as well, which didn't surprise Ren at all, and he could tell that she was making it a point to look everywhere but in his direction as she went to retrieve it. When she had the device in hand, he suggested that they go down to the garage and find somewhere to charge their devices. He knew that El's would be just as low on power as his was—she was just as avid a reader as him, and those backlights took a disgusting amount of energy to keep going. When they had found their way back and plugged their devices into an awkwardly placed outlet, El pointed out that it was almost lunchtime, and that they had never eaten breakfast that morning.

"I guess it's off to the diner again," Ren said. "Want to join us, Rojr?"

"Oh, I, uh...I don't have any money."

"Well then, you're in luck—it just so happens that I do." Or his parents did, to be more precise. They both held enormous amounts of stock in some of the most lucrative companies in existence, and he had made sure to keep his access to their funds open when he left for Pinnacle with El. Money wouldn't get him accepted, but it certainly didn't hurt his chances.

"You're...offering to pay for me?"

"That I am," Ren replied. "You've got to eat, after all, and I'd imagine they still haven't opened the cafeteria yet. Besides, El might get the wrong idea if we were to eat alone."

El's raised eyebrow went unnoticed by Rojr, who fidgeted as he responded.

"Oh, um...thanks."

"Should we bring Aleeṡa, too?"

Ren turned in response to El's question, spying out their friend. She was still wrapped in Alex's arms, and as far as he could tell, was still in the process of coming to terms with things. When he looked back at El to reply, he saw that she had come to the same conclusion as him.

"I guess we can bring him along too," she conceded. "He's a jerk and a pervert, but if he makes her feel better, then I can put up with him."

"In that case," Ren said, "let's be off."

###  Alee

Alee had already been awake when the instructor arrived to the courtyard. She had been able to feel the woman's intentions in her sleep, and they had been more than enough to jolt her out of her slumber. By the time the shots had been fired, she was already on her feet and knew exactly what was coming.

The pistol in the woman's hand thundered as she fired a pair of blanks into the sky, and Alee watched as the applicants around her scrambled out from beneath blankets and inside tents. If she hadn't heard the instructor's thoughts about the mines, she would have found the sight comical. As it was, she was more saddened than anything else. The instructor droned on, saying the words that Alee had already heard while she had been reciting them inside her head.

Oom stood beside her, and she latched onto his mind like a frightened child clutching tightly to her mother's neck. These next few minutes would leave her paralyzed if she didn't focus on someone whose mind wasn't about to blossom into panic and pain, and Oom had proven himself to be immune to fear and very unlikely to get hurt, at least in situations like this. Shutting out all else, she entered into his mind.

It was always strange tapping into the psyche of another person, but Oom was even stranger than most. Every other person she had ever connected to in this way had been all but overflowing with all sorts of emotions—fear, anger, joy, sadness—but Oom never did. He only ever felt one thing, it seemed: pride. She would say that she could hardly blame him, but she was rather uniquely positioned to be able to do just that. They were twins, after all.

Well, they were twins in the sense that they had both shared the same life. Technically speaking, she was two days older than him. They had been part of the seventeenth batch of subjects in the State's Tri-Z breeding program. Out of the entire program's 1,500 subjects, they were two of the thirteen who lived past the age of six months, and they were also two of the four surviving subjects not to display severe psychological problems. Over the course of their lives, they had been augmented with the best cybernetics available, in addition to their specially-cultivated psionic potential. They had been raised to be machines of war, and Oom took that to mean that they were somehow superior to their naturally-birthed brethren who actually had a choice in which direction their lives would take.

Being bitter wouldn't solve anything, though. The instructor's voice came to a halt, and the first explosions came. Oom was already in motion, and she was close behind. They dashed and jumped nimbly around the unseen threats lying just beneath them, relying wholeheartedly in Oom's reflexes and supernatural foresight. She felt a foreign, ugly emotion rise up within her as she ran: amusement at the suffering of those around her. It took a moment for her to remember that it was Oom's amusement and not hers, but that didn't change the fact that she felt it.

They made their way out of the courtyard quickly, which was good. Cutting off her contact with Oom, she felt the deplorable sensation of enjoyment fade away. She said nothing, knowing from previous confrontations that he saw nothing wrong with the way he was, and there was no convincing him otherwise. In retrospect, it was incredible that he hadn't been labeled as psychotic by their handlers. He obviously was, even if he did only rarely act on his urges.

Feeling the need to get away from him, Alee began to walk the concrete-lined circumference of the courtyard. As she did so, she was surprised to see that several other applicants were getting out of the minefield mere seconds after her and Oom. She had been expecting to see a few others getting out soon, but not that soon. Against Oom's sense of entitlement as she might have been, she was fully aware that the two of them were extraordinarily talented.

Alee approached one of them, a skinny man with a pale complexion. He looked away nervously as she approached, and she cautiously reached out to touch his mind with hers. Inside, he was even more anxious than he acted. Sifting delicately through his thoughts, she searched for the method he had used to escape. When she found it, she almost laughed. He had done the same as her, although he had managed to do so without any sort of connection to the person he was following, telepathic or otherwise. In a way, that was even more impressive. Feeling mildly curious, she stayed inside his mind just long enough to catch his name—Rojr.

Turning to find the man who Rojr had followed, Alee probed for his name, as well as his method. When she found what she was looking for, she could not help but introduce herself.

"Hello Joosef, my name's Alee. That trick you did with the mines was pretty impressive—not many people could figure out how to disarm them using telekinesis, especially without being able to see them." The man turned as she spoke, looking at her with a fierce curiosity.

"Are you a telepath, or just that insightful? The one who followed me didn't seem to notice I was doing anything at all."

"Telepath," she replied, "and no, he didn't. How long did it take you to figure out how to manipulate things that are out of sight?"

"Can't you just read me to figure that out?" Joosef's head cocked to the side, looking genuinely confused. For someone who was able to decipher what she was so easily, he didn't seem to have a very good grasp on the more commonly intuitive things.

"I could, but most people think it's rude. Frankly, I'm surprised you weren't offended that I got your name off of you without asking."

"Why would that offend me? It just saves the trouble of having to tell you myself. Telepathy sounds like a much more efficient form of communication than speech."

As he continued to stare at her, she realized that the look on his face was eerily familiar. It was the same look that she would get whenever a new handler showed up. It was curious, focused, and distant all at once. That look used to send shivers down her spine, but she had grown used to it eventually. Even so, it felt weird to be getting that look from a fellow applicant.

"It can actually lead to quite a bit of confusion," she offered. "People think things without really meaning them sometimes, or else they'll change their mind after you've already stopped listening."

"I never thought of it that way," Joosef said. Without another word, he turned and walked away.

Well, Alee thought to herself, that wasn't awkward at all.

Deciding that she had better find something to do, she headed for the garage. It would be some time before everyone had made it out of the courtyard, and she was feeling hungry. Her and Oom's handlers had known beforehand about the lack of food during testing, so they had made sure to pack plenty of rations. It was all dehydrated and tasted awful, but at least it kept her full. Although, she supposed that if she had truly wanted to eat fresh food, she could have snuck off with Alex into the kitchen yesterday. He hadn't seemed that angry with her, and she didn't think he would have said no to her if she had asked.

Finishing up her strip of jerky and downing one last mouthful of crunchy peas, she gathered some supplies for what was to come. She didn't have a perfectly clear idea, but she had managed to glean the general nature of their next task from the musings of the instructor. And, knowing Oom, he would be much less likely to let her tag along for such a lengthy ordeal. He hadn't had time to stop her while exiting the minefield, but the next challenge would take hours, at least. That would be more than enough time for him to hide from her, both physically and mentally. Not that it should matter—in what was coming, her talents would be just as useful as his, if not more so.

She took a knapsack that had been packed for her and filled it methodically, doing her best to pack only what she knew she would need. Her compactable rifle was the first thing to go in, broken down into its individual pieces so as not to raise any suspicion among the other applicants. She felt guilty about the deception, but there were only forty slots available, and this was the only path that was open to her. If she didn't make it here, then she would be viewed as a failure. With their mouths, her handlers had told her that failures were repurposed. With their minds, they had told her just what such repurposing was. She had no desire to let that happen.

Next was food. She hoped that she wouldn't be needing more than enough for the rest of the day, but she packed enough for an extra day, just to be safe. If she needed more food than that, there would be larger problems to deal with than going hungry. A few bottles of distilled water went in as well, although she didn't pack as much as she wanted to. She only had so much space, and water was something that she could, at least in theory, find if she needed more.

After that, she made a quick check on her smartpad to see what the weather would be like over the next few days. When she saw that there would be no rain coming in, she nodded to herself and topped off what space was left with a few other miscellaneous items that she figured might come in handy. Rope, bandages, some spare clothes—just enough to top off her bag. She stuck a small case of ammunition in both of her pant pockets: twenty rounds in all. With that last addition, she was ready.

As she was preparing to leave, she heard voices coming closer. Hiding behind one of the busses, she saw a group of four approaching the garage, two of whom were almost completely naked. Among them were Alex and Aleeṡa, and two individuals she did not recognize. Deciding to wait and watch, she remained hidden as they entered and found some clothes to wear. After a quick mental prod at the two unfamiliar faces, she discerned their names to be El and Ren. She also gathered that they were both psions, which prompted her to very quickly cut off contact with them. Some psions could detect the touch of a telepath, and she didn't want to give herself away now that she had already decided to hide. As the group prepared their own survival kits, she was surprised to see how well they were packing for being—as far as she could tell—blind to what lay ahead. Between the four of them, they had weapons, medical supplies, and any tools they might need. If they stayed together, the four of them would likely be just fine.

When they had left, Alee stepped out from behind the bus and followed them at a distance. By the time they returned to the courtyard, most of the applicants were either safe or dead. Surprisingly, there were more in the first category than the second. She knew that only the best would dare to even try applying at Pinnacle, but a quick head count showed that almost two thirds of the applicants were still standing. Silently, she hoped that her preparation would give her enough of an edge.

What happened next shocked her. Aleeṡa, El, and Ren all rushed back into the minefield, helping an injured man and dressing his wounds. She stared in utter disbelief, not only because they were willingly helping their competition, but also because she knew that under any other circumstances, she would have done the same. And yet, in this one situation, she was too terrified to do so. That injured man could repay her kindness by performing better than her in the next test, thereby ruining her chances at success. If the situation had been anything else, she told herself again, she would have helped as well.

She felt the familiar presence of the instructor's mind once more, and she looked about for her. Seeing nothing, she was surprised when she heard the woman's voice. It wasn't telepathy—she could tell that she was actually hearing the woman, rather than just receiving her words. Poking a finger in her ear, she found nothing inside which could be used to produce the sound. The gesture did not muffle her hearing, however. Frowning, she listened to the message while still trying to work out just what the woman was doing.

Catching sight of the man who had been carried out of the minefield, Alee ran after the nurses who were taking him away. She couldn't put her reasoning into words—it just felt like it needed doing. It was probably out of guilt, but she didn't care. The instructor's voice warned her to be back at the courtyard by midnight, but she only halfway heard. As she drew nearer, one of the nurses began speaking into a radio.

"We've got another one—Alburt Caldwell. Shrapnel lodged in his side, shoulder, and arm. One of the applicants gave him 100 mg of ketamine and patched up the big injuries. We have enough room for him?"

"Bring him in," the response came. "There weren't many live ones this year, so we should be able to fix him up in time for stage two."

"Right. We'll be there in five."

The nurses carried Alburt away, and Alee continued to follow. They didn't tell her to stop. In fact, they didn't seem to notice her at all. It was a feeling that she was unused to—normally, she was the center of attention.

They came up to a large building labeled "INFRMREE" and brought Alburt inside. Alee stepped inside the sliding doors as well, looking about intently as she did so. The entryway was much more welcoming than she had expected, but the facility she had grown up in had hardly been designed with comfort in mind. She and Oom had been taken care of, but they had never really been cared for. At least, that's what she had been told by a technician once. He hadn't come back again after that, and she was fairly certain that he hadn't been alive to. Their existence had been kept secret until now—the State hadn't wanted anyone to know about their project until there was some sort of success. Apparently, a .1% success rate was all they felt they needed.

She followed the nurses into a small room that was very sparsely decorated. The bed and dresser were the only furniture in the room, unless you were to count the small table that looked like it could be folded up into the wall. Alburt was placed gently on the bed, and another nurse entered the room carrying a machine that looked far too heavy for his—she assumed it was a him, at any rate—thin arms to carry. He placed the machine over Alburt like a canopy, obscuring him from view. A holographic interface jumped up from the machine a moment later, and the nurse shifted through its menus too quickly for Alee to follow. When the nurse had finished, the machine began to hum quietly. After several minutes, it gave off a high-pitched chime and the nurse lifted it off of Alburt, whose skin was now flawless.

The nurses left, and Alee couldn't help but wonder why she had never seen a machine like that before. Many of her brothers and sisters had died of injuries no more serious than Alburt's, and he looked as if nothing at all had happened to him. Her facility had had access to the best technology, so why had they not used it to save as many injured subjects as they could? As she mused, she sat down on the waist-high dresser and waited for Alburt to wake up.

###  Alburt

The first thing Alburt noticed was that he was sleeping in the wrong direction. He always slept with his head facing north—it helped him sleep better, for some reason nobody had ever really been able to explain to him. Now, however, he was pointed east. When he opened his eyes, he found yet another surprise: he was indoors.

Light shone down at him through frosted glass, bright but not painfully so. There was sunlight as well, coming in from a small window on the eastern wall of the room. It was shut, cutting him off from the world beyond. This felt strange. He could not remember why he was here. He could remember everything from the night before, but nothing after that. Had they moved him in his sleep? Was this supposed to be his test?

A door slammed shut down the hall, jarring his memory back into place. A single gunshot waking him up, the instructor's words filling him with fear and confusion. Explosions on every side. Screams. A sensation of panic as he realized that he didn't know what to do. Running after another applicant, hoping she had some sort of plan. The click beneath his bare foot, felt rather than heard. Diving forward, rolling and twisting. Pain. A broken shoulder. Blood. Crawling. A faceless woman, kneeling down before him in his agony. Coldness. Darkness.

Bolting upright, he felt his blood turn to ice. Reaching across his chest, he frantically probed with his fingers for the gashes that he knew would be there, that he knew should still be bleeding. When he did not find them, he realized that there was no pain. Not the pain that he had been expecting, at any rate. There was a dull throbbing in his side, but there was no feeling of having been dragged across a bed of gravel as there had been before his blackout. He had been healed, it would seem, but how?

"You're awake," an unfamiliar voice said. Turning to face its source, he saw a woman wearing skintight clothes and the look of someone whose concentration had just been broken. Her hair was black, and short like a man's. She wore jewelry, though—there was no missing the thin band she wore around her head. It shone like silver, but so did just about everything else he had seen since leaving home. Even her clothes shimmered, as if the shape they held wasn't already mesmerizing enough. Realizing that she was waiting for him, he opened his mouth to reply.

"Yes, I am. Did I...fail?" The word tasted bitter in his mouth, but his father had taught him not to balk at it. He was gifted, but not infallible.

"I don't think so," she replied. "The nurses sounded like they thought you'd be able to make it back to the courtyard in time for the second stage."

"Nurses?" He knew the word, of course—he had been taught about the outside world, but he had never met a nurse before. His village had a doctor, but there were so few of them who had lived there that the old man had never needed any assistance.

"Yes, you're in the nursing ward right now. They fixed you right up, it looks like."

"Feels like it too," he commented. "How many hours has it been?"

"Actually, you've only been here for about ten minutes."

That caused Alburt's eyebrows to rise. Ten minutes was how long it took for Doctor Post to bandage a single cut. He wasn't bandaged—his skin was healed. His father hadn't been lying, after all. He really hadn't been able to imagine everything that technology could do.

Suddenly, he realized that he wasn't wearing a shirt. He started to reach for a sheet to cover himself, but he realized that doing so now would probably cause more offense than simply ignoring his own exposure. She hadn't objected to seeing him this way, so he supposed that there was no harm done. So many new rules.

"I'm Alburt," he said, trying to break the tension that he felt mounting in the air.

"You can call me Alee," the woman replied. "My 'name' is A-17, but most people have an easier time remembering me as Alee."

"Where did you get a name like that? Is it from an old-world language?"

"Part of it is," she chirped. "A is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. As far as what it means, I was subject Alpha of batch 17. I was part of a project meant to genetically engineer humans with psionic potential."

"So, you have powers too?"

"Yes, I—wait a second," Alee's face suddenly became very focused. "You used the word 'powers.' Are you from the bloc?"

The intensity of her gaze was unsettling. He was reminded once again that he was shirtless, and that all of his things were still bundled up in the courtyard. Unless they had been destroyed by the mines—he couldn't discount that possibility. And now, this woman seemed to be taking an interest in him. What sort of interest, he wasn't sure.

"I'm from Konstantinovska," he admitted. "A little river village in the east."

"Be careful who you tell that to," Alee cautioned. "Most people don't like bloccers."

"I'll be sure to remember that," Alburt said. He had never heard the term "bloccer" before, but he got the feeling that it wasn't meant to be a compliment. As far as he was concerned, he was a village man—nothing more.

At that point, a figure came inside the room. It was decked in what he could only describe as a whitewashed fallout suit. There was no skin exposed, an air canister protruded from the front of the mask, and the thick rubber it was made of did not look even remotely easy to move in. Alburt started when the white figure walked toward him, until he realized that this was likely one of the nurses. He had only ever seen such equipment used in cases of extreme radiation, but he imagined it would work just as well when being used to keep pathogens away.

"How do you feel"

The nurse's voice sounded as though he was speaking through a tin can. The faceplate was completely opaque, but Alburt could still tell that he wasn't looking at him. He felt...apathy. An odd trait for someone whose job was caring for the infirm. Nonetheless, he looked at the man's faceless form and replied as respectfully as he could.

"I feel fine, thank you. Is there somewhere that I could find a shirt to wear?"

"We're not supposed to give you anything," the nurse said. This time, there was the edge of annoyance in his words. "Your shirt was ruined in the blast. You can go back to the courtyard and find another one for yourself."

"Am I free to go, then?" He did not like this man. Too impatient. Too impersonal.

"Yes, you are. You were out while they were giving the instructions, so be sure to be at the courtyard by midnight. That's when phase two starts."

Midnight. Judging from the shadows in the room, it was still morning. Standing up from the bed, he nodded to the nurse. "Thank you. I'll be going, then."

Following the nurse out of the room, he found himself standing in a labyrinth of halls and doorways labeled in writing. He tried to make sense of the words, but the letters refused to give up the information that they held. Squeezing his hand into a fist, he forced himself to concentrate.

X...

-...

I...

T.

X-IT. The word he needed. Following the arrow at the bottom of the sign, he found himself entering into a large room filled with natural light. Potted plants lined the walls, and there were large, comfortable chairs surrounding low tables throughout the room. The far wall was made entirely of glass—huge panes that must have taken special machinery just to lift. Spotting a door handle on one of the panes, he opened the door and stepped outside.

Alee walked out with him, and he found that they were roughly one kilometer southeast of the courtyard. Knowing that he had no clothes of his own waiting for him, he decided to do something that would have left his father ashamed of him. He navigated his way to the large garage where the busses had been parked the night before, and began looking for an unattended shirt among the possessions of his fellow applicants. Alee was still with him, which only served to make him feel even more uncomfortable as he took a shirt from the shelf space labeled "Wurster, Mooree" and struggled to squeeze inside of it. She raised an eyebrow when she saw what he was doing, but said nothing. Even so, he felt his face burn at the thought of her seeing him act like a criminal.

She continued to follow him as he left, and he felt his skin start to crawl. Neither of them had spoken a word since leaving the infirmary, and it was not a comfortable silence that sat between them. They had made it about halfway back to the courtyard when she finally spoke, and he nearly jumped out of his shoes at the sound of her voice.

"Are you hungry?"

Frowning, Alburt stopped for a moment and considered the question. It was early for him to be eating—most families in his village only had the time or money for a single meal in a day, and that was dinner. Even so, he would be lying if he said he didn't want to eat.

"It's not a trick question," she teased.

"I am hungry," he admitted, "but I don't have any money."

"Well, it just so happens that I know where you can get some food free of charge."

Without explaining herself any further, Alee led him toward the campus proper. He followed her hesitantly, unsure just what it was that she was planning to do. She walked over to a building labeled with some word he was too nervous to decipher. He saw a K, an R, an F, some A's and E's, a T, but they refused to sit in place. Alee stopped at the door and thrust a finger at it, turning to face him.

"Can you open this?"

"I'm not sure," he said. "I've never used my powers for anything other than hunting. I can try, though."

She gave him a nod, and he closed his eyes. Breathing in slowly, he held the air in as long as he could. Blowing it out all at once, he shouted a command at the door with his mind. Open.

There was a tremendous cracking sound, and he opened his eyes to find that the door had obeyed. Alee stared at him with wide eyes for a moment, then she seemed to take hold of herself once more.

"There were a few members of my program who had telekinesis, but none of them could generate that much force. You snapped the lock clean in half." She gestured to the ground, and he saw a shard of what appeared to be titanium lying at the base of the threshold. He picked up the shiny piece of metal, holding it close to his face to see it better.

"Is it unusual for someone to be able to do that? I was the only person in my village with any powers."

"It's not just unusual; it's almost unheard of. You must be at least as talented as me and Oom, and we were bred for it."

"That's good to know," Alburt replied. "I wasn't sure how I would match up to the other applicants, but it sounds like I should be fine. You said there was food here, right?"

His question seemed to jolt Alee out of whatever reverie she was in, and she suddenly was back in motion. She walked through the door and led him up a narrow stairway. When they entered the room beyond, he found that they were in a very large kitchen. There were more stoves and ovens here than there were homes in his entire village.

"Here we are," Alee said as they came up to yet another door. This one she opened herself, pulling the handle back and revealing enough food within to feed an entire country. Artificial light cascaded down around him, illuminating fruits and vegetables of every kind. Looking farther back, he could see fish and dairy and poultry as well. A realization suddenly hit him as he looked at all this food, and he felt stupid for not coming to that realization sooner.

"We're stealing this food, aren't we?"

"Not all of it," Alee quipped. "There's more food in here than they need, anyway."

"I suppose so, but still..."

Stealing a man's shirt was one thing—he didn't need a shirt to live. But then, there was so much here. Surely, there was no way that the academy actually needed all that food. Making up his mind, he snatched a radish and bit into it with an audible crunch. If he was going to be eating stolen goods, he was going to make sure it wasn't anything he would enjoy. He left with Alee, who had grabbed herself a bunch of grapes. The radish's bitter taste stayed in his mouth even after he swallowed the last bite, but he refused to complain. Every crime had its price, however small.

"So, why does a man from the bloc have a name like Alburt? Don't most people around there stick to more traditional names?" Alee asked the question while they were walking back to the courtyard, slowing her pace and forcing him to do the same.

"It's not my birth name," he explained. "I took on the name 'Alburt' when I left my village to come here. My old name is Stanislav Zolnerowich. I changed my name in hopes of better fitting in."

"Well, you almost fooled me. If you hadn't called your psychic abilities 'powers,' then I probably wouldn't have guessed you were from the bloc. Your accent sounds more Latin than anything else."

"My aunt and uncle have several friends who live in Mexico, and they visited on several occasions. When they found out I was going here, they made it a point to teach me how to speak like I wasn't from the bloc."

"Hey, bloccer." A voice came from behind, and Alburt saw a man whose face radiated contempt. Straightening his back, he met the man's gaze and rested his hands on his hips. Before he had time to formulate a reply, the man continued to speak, stepping forward slowly as he did so.

"What are you doing with my shirt, ruski? Thought you could just take something and nobody would notice?" He was standing close enough that Alburt could smell his breath. He made a point not to back down, standing almost head and shoulders over the man.

"I needed a shirt, and it looked like you had plenty."

He hadn't meant for it to come to this, but he could tell that this man was out for blood. Even if he did give the shirt back, he would still be in for a fight. He knew the type well enough—full of pride and empty of compassion. Such men didn't last long back home, but that seemed to be different here. Alburt wouldn't throw the first punch, but just from looking he could tell that he would throw the last one if it came to a fight. And it did.

The man's hand was a blur, striking him in the side of the head before he had a chance to even realize he was being attacked. Stars swam before him, and he raised an arm to deflect a second blow aimed at his face. Absorbing a kick meant to double him over, he shot his hand toward the man's neck and squeezed. After a few moments, the blows stopped and were replaced by fingers scrabbling frantically at his hand, which gripped the man's throat tightly. With a great heave, he pushed the man back and released him.

"Idiot bloccer," the man snarled. "I won't forget this."

"I hope not," Alburt replied. His attacker staggered away, gently massaging his throat.

"So, Alburt," Alee said with the look of a child asking for an extra helping of food, "how about we be friends?"

###  Joosef

Joosef walked away from the cyborg who called herself Alee feeling intrigued. Here was a woman who was comprised of almost equally balanced living and mechanical parts, and yet she acted as if she were a perfectly ordinary person. Her devotion to social norms was surprising, considering her talent. He had always assumed that exceptional individuals would prize their individuality rather than bend to the whims of others. Apparently, he had been wrong.

Still, he supposed that he should at least be impressed that she was able to understand what it was that he had done to the mines. Most people would have attributed his survival to pure luck and left it at that, but she had been curious enough to dig into his mind despite her hesitation to abuse that ability. If nothing else, he had to at least admit that she wasn't as much of a stickler for the rules as she tried to let on. Now, the real question was whether she realized that herself or not...

There was an announcement alerting them to the next stage of their initiation, and he filed away the information for the time being. After that, he heard the sound of someone screaming and turned to look. In the courtyard, there was some idiot with a stick smacking the ground to check for mines. The person who had screamed was a woman, presumably a friend of his. After quickly scanning the ground below and finding that none of the mines were active, he went back to his musings. He could still hear the sound of the man striking the ground as he walked, but he did his best to ignore it. For now, he had to figure out how he could prepare for what was to come without actually knowing what that would be.

After a while, he noticed Alee walking toward the campus with another person. Unless he was mistaken, the man's face had a distinctly Russian look to it. Not that that meant anything in and of itself—there were plenty of people across the world of Russian descent—but if he was from the bloc and had managed to get all the way to Pinnacle, then he would need to have a very impressive set of skills. Intrigued, he followed them at a distance until they reached the cafeteria. When he heard the cracking sound of the door's lock being shattered, he felt his blood go cold. Snapping titanium was tricky business—it liked to stretch and bend instead. Breaking even a small lock could take a tremendous amount of force. He hadn't even known that such a feat was possible. It could very well be that this man was one of the most powerful psions alive.

When his quarry left the cafeteria, he hid in the shadow of a nearby building and waited for them to pass by. As he stepped out into the sunlight once more, he saw that he was not the only person following them. There was another man, his posture oozing with confidence and entitlement. Joosef watched as the man approached, calling out to Alee's companion.

What happened next, he viewed impassively. There was a short exchange between the two men—he was too far away to make out the words—and the man who had been following lashed out with a flurry of blows. He was quickly subdued, however, and Joosef was already walking toward the scene as the two parties went their separate ways. Following the aggressor, he caught hold of his shoulder. The man spun around, furious. Joosef was ready, however. He ducked below the man's blow, exactly the same attack he had used against the Russian psion, and jabbed at his solar plexus. Stunned, the man stayed still long enough for Joosef to speak.

"I'm here to help you," he said. The man's eyes still glowed with fury, but his silence was sufficient permission to continue.

"It seems we have a common enemy," he stated, "but neither of us can deal with him alone."

"You mean the bloccer?"

"Yes." He wasn't overly fond of the term himself, but he wasn't going to stop this man from using it. Right now, he needed an ally.

"I take it you have a plan, then?" The man seemed to have calmed down for the most part. Good. His anger would be useful later, but right now he needed to be able to think.

"More just the seeds of one, but the details shouldn't be too difficult to work out."

"Good," the man replied. "Let's hear it."

Joosef grinned, which the man mistook as eagerness. He was dealing with a vain man, and vain men were easy to manipulate once they thought they were in control.

"Well, to start, this would have to happen during the second test. Judging from our first test, nobody would think anything of an applicant dying in the second."

"Obviously," the man snapped. Give him something, Joosef thought to himself.

"If one of us can catch him alone, the other should be able to take him by surprise while he's distracted by the first. Since you're the one who's tangled with him already, which would you prefer to be?"

"You be the distraction. I want to kill him myself."

"Alright. Should we wait until midnight to meet again, then? We wouldn't want him to get suspicious." Not that there was any chance of that. He just didn't want to stay around this man any longer. Pretending to be subservient grated on him.

"Of course. Once we figure out what the second challenge is, we'll decide on the exact location."

"As you say," Joosef concluded. He walked off to the garage after that, locating his things quickly. There was a crowd of people there, but none of them seemed to notice as he slipped a switchblade into his pocket. He had no doubt that his newfound ally would betray him at the first chance, and he had every intention to be ready when that happened. Now, he simply had to wait.

###  Jak

Jak fell to his knees with no recollection of how he had managed to get out of the courtyard. His breathing was ragged, and he poured sweat. He was surrounded by the sounds of men and women celebrating with their friends at having made it out alive. Clenching his fist, he did his best to ignore them.

When he had caught his breath, Jak stood up and looked around. There was still smoke rising from the courtyard, although not as much as he had expected. In the chaos, it had seemed like so many mines had gone off, but he could only see a few dozen plumes of smoke. Was that really it?

"Congratulations to all of you who made it through your first test."

A voice cut through the air with startling clarity, as if the speaker were standing right next to him. Looking around, he couldn't see anyone who appeared to be speaking.

"If any of you are injured and have not done so, please direct yourselves to the nurse's ward."

That was all well and good for the injured, Jak thought to himself, but what did it do for the applicants who had died? They couldn't be brought back to life. He should know—his brother had died of a gun wound almost five years ago. He had been young to die, even in the slums. Seven years old, and shot to death because their father hadn't been quick enough in paying his dealer. That had been the moment at which Jak had sworn to himself that he would never let himself become a user.

"Again, if any of you wish to leave, there are still three busses remaining in the garage. You may collect your things and get on board if you desire—nobody will stop you."

No. He would not run. He would not let himself worry anymore. Janis had died for him, and he was not going to let that death be in vain. If he left now, he would be spitting on her sacrifice. How she had known where the mine was, he had no idea, but that didn't change what she had done. What she had given him.

"Your next exam, for those of you who still feel brave enough to stay, will begin in the courtyard at midnight tonight. You are free to do as you please until then, but anyone not here by midnight will be automatically disqualified. You are dismissed."

Several applicants began cautiously heading back into the courtyard, half expecting to step on a mine as they did so. After watching them get almost a hundred meters in without anything exploding, Jak shrugged and walked in after them. Even if he couldn't bring her back, he at least wanted to make sure that Janis' body wasn't going to lie out in the open. He found her quickly enough, although he almost didn't recognize her.

Her face was mangled, with a broken nose and jaw, missing teeth, and bruises everywhere. He lifted her up, cutting his hand on the shrapnel that was jutting out of her back. Biting his cheek, he fought to keep his composure. If he lost control now, he would do more than just curse at his injury.

Spotting a nurse who was milling about the vicinity, Jak carried Janis over as quickly as he could. When he gave her to the nurse, the masked figure jabbed a needle into his arm without any warning. Giving a yelp, he pulled away and slapped at the dot of blood that welled up from his broken skin.

"For tetanus," the nurse clarified. "You cut yourself on some shrapnel. Be more careful next time."

As the nurse walked away with Janis' limp body, Jak could feel something building up inside him. Gritting his teeth, he squeezed his arm. More blood pooled up from where the needle had pierced, but he didn't care. He breathed in sharply, trying to clear his head. Falling to his knees, he choked back a sob and squeezed his eyes shut. There was something wet on his cheek, and he pounded the ground with his fist. The last time he had cried was at his brother's funeral.

He stayed there for a long time. He wasn't sure how long, but it must have been close to an hour. He just knelt in the grass, silently letting the tears run down his face. When he finally had the presence of mind to lift his hand from the ground, it was clutching a fistful of grass and dirt. His knuckles were smeared brown, and he dropped the grass back to the ground. When scrubbing at the back of his hand did nothing to remove the dirt, he stood up and told himself that he needed to clean up. The blood on his other hand had scabbed over, but he barely noticed.

He made his way back to the garage, which was now swarming with people. Finding a bathroom, he relieved himself and washed off what blood and dirt he could. He would just have to live with the rest for the time being. It was just dirt.

Exiting the bathroom, he decided that it would be best if he were to arm himself for the second challenge. He had the blades in his arms, but those were only useful at very close range. Finding his things and rummaging through them, he found what he was looking for and inspected it to make sure that it was still in good condition. When he was satisfied, he slipped the handgun into the waist of his pants. It wasn't a proper holster, but it would have to do.

"Careful with that, son."

Jak turned to face a man who wore more than a day's worth of stubble on his chin. His hair was short and trimmed, although that seemed to be the only neat thing about him. His pants were wrinkled, the jacket he wore was several sizes too large, and his hat was askew. And with the lopsided smile he was giving Jak, he did not make for a very impressive figure. As Jak continued to stare, the man spoke once more.

"Name's Ћeodoor. Ћeodoor Pine."

"Jak Stromwell."

Ћeodoor had a strong grip, Jak realized, as the man seized his hand in a hearty handshake. When he released him, Ћeodoor continued.

"You look awful young to be carrying something like that. But then, most of you look too young to me. It wouldn't surprise me if I was the only person here over the age of twenty."

"I'm sure that there are others," Jak replied. Although, he did have to admit, not many of them would be more than a year or two over twenty. Slaying was an occupation best suited for the young.

"I'm sure you're right," Ћeodoor conceded, "but it feels strange knowing that there's more than ten years between me and just about everybody else here."

"What's someone so old doing here?" Jak's question was met with a sad smile.

"This is about all I'm good for, now. Got into a bad accident a while back, and I haven't been able to work with most people since then. I'm fine most of the time, but sometimes I just...lose control. It's like I go into survival mode and can't turn it off. Figure that might not be such a bad thing for a Slayer to have. And if I die, well, at least I tried."

"Well, best of luck with that. If we both make it through, maybe we can talk some more."

"Sure," Ћeodoor replied. "No point in getting to know each other when we could very well end up dead soon, eh?"

Jak walked away after making some token denial, but he knew that Ћeodoor had been right on the mark. He had already lost Janis—he didn't want to grow close to any of the other applicants until this was over. If he made it through this, then there would be time to find a friend. Until then, he just had to focus on putting one foot in front of the other.

Making his way into the courtyard, he found Janis' bedspread where it had been left largely undisturbed. There was some dirt that had landed on it from the blast, but aside from that, it was exactly as they had left it. Her pillow was there, too—a large turtle with a smile sewn onto its face. Picking the turtle up, he hugged it tight to his chest. After standing in that pose for a while, he took a deep breath and repositioned the turtle so that it was under his arm, just as he had seen Janis do the day before. Making his way back to the garage once more, he placed the large plush among his things before going out into the city for a long walk.

##  Verse 3
###  Ω-17

Ω-17 had left the campus as soon as the time and place of their next test had been announced. Unlike his sister, he had taken time to prepare the night before for what would come. Sheathed in his boot, he had all that he would need to survive—a serrated combat knife, 18 centimeters long. He would have chosen a larger one, but any longer and it would have been too noticeable. Some of the others would know enough to arm themselves, but he didn't want to give any ideas to those who lacked the foresight to do so on their own. Keeping the others unprepared was almost as important as making sure that he himself was prepared. He hadn't needed the knife for the first test, but it wouldn't surprise him if that were to change for this next phase. And even if he didn't need it, it was better to be over-prepared than under-prepared.

Nonetheless, he had no reason to remain in the school's vicinity during the hours before midnight. Poking around in search of some hint as to what the next test held would likely be futile. The instructors had done this too many times to leave any obvious clues. Until then, he would familiarize himself with his environment. This would be his home for the next four years, after all—there was no sense in waiting until after testing was over to learn his way around. Alee would be staying behind, he knew, forging alliances with the other applicants as if she actually needed them. She had always been the social one, although he supposed that had to do at least in part with her telepathic ability. Even when their program had been in full swing, she had made an effort to befriend their brothers and sisters. It had been foolish of her, but she had done it anyway. There had been many nights that she had cried herself to sleep over the death of yet another subject, and yet she always found an excuse to attach herself to another one mere days later.

Ω-17 had always been the more rational out of the two, and he was happy to stay that way. The other subjects in their program had been rivals more than anything else—even Alee was ultimately just another competitor. If their handlers had decided that only one of them were to have gone to Pinnacle, he would have killed her without a second thought. He did feel some comradeship with her, to be sure, but nothing that would get in the way of his own survival. She, however, was so thoroughly attached to the idea of having him as a brother and a friend that he doubted she would betray him under any circumstances. That was her greatest weakness, and it was one which he had never shared with her. Her heart was too large, and it made her merciful. Mercy was for fools, a lesson which she had never learned.

Returning his attention to the surrounding city, he decided that the layout was fairly straightforward. The roads followed a grid-like pattern which seemed to stretch on for kilometers. It would make for easy navigation, even if he somehow managed to get himself completely lost. It seemed completely at odds with the landscape of Pinnacle Academy, with its green courtyard and a campus which looked as if absolutely no planning had gone into its layout. The buildings all had different designs, and there was no obvious forethought in how they were arranged. It was almost as if it had been constructed one building at a time, although he knew well enough that was not the case. Pinnacle had been built in under a year, at the request of its founder and current headmaster, Abigaal Waters. The city had been built around it, which impressed even Ω-17. He was no architect, but raising an entire city on what was once an abandoned wasteland was quite the feat for the State to accomplish, especially considering that most of it had been built in just under fifteen years.

The city's name came from Waters as well—Haven. It made sense, considering that it housed the future defenders of humanity. Although, he imagined that the name was as much a political ploy as anything else. It sounded safe, and that led to its citizens feeling safe. And if the citizens felt safe, they would less likely feel driven to commit crimes. It was a simple tactic, yet it seemed to be effective. Haven was among the top fifty safest cities in the world, with a crime rate rivaled only by cities that were under martial law. And even then, most of the crimes that did occur were relatively minor: robbery, failure to pay taxes, jaywalking. He could count the number of murders that had taken place here with the fingers of one hand, and all the reported assaults on his fingers and toes. She might not have been the most architecturally-minded person to plan a city, but Waters certainly knew how to make the masses behave.

An electrocar buzzed past him, its engine humming softly as it went by. Watching the vehicle cruise down the otherwise empty street, Ω-17 realized that he was beginning to feel hungry. He called up a map on his retinal display, and found a cluster of restaurants not too far from where he was. Dismissing the map with a click of his tongue, he spun about on his heels and made his way toward his destination. Unlike Alee, he took no issue with using their program's credit line for his own purposes. Their handlers would frown upon it, but they wouldn't be able to touch him once he became a Slayer. They had some pull among the higher-ups in the State, but not that much.

Turning the last corner on his short journey, he found a series of brightly lit signs lining the side of the road. As he approached one of the storefronts, he saw a face that was vaguely familiar. Unless he was mistaken, it was one of the other applicants. One of the less promising ones, at that. No obvious psionic potential, and the only cybernetics he had were clearly sub-par. Forgetting his hunger for a moment, Ω-17 approached the man.

"Made it out in one piece, I see."

The man's eyes flashed in recognition, then anger, then pain. Ω-17 smiled. He had been right. Now, to twist the knife...

"How did you manage that," he asked, "without any way to detect the mines? It's fairly obvious that you don't have any psionic ability, and your cybernetics all seem to be geared toward more...brutish uses."

This time, it was more than the man's eyes that responded to his words. His lips came back in a snarl, and his nostrils flared wide. This was almost too easy to be enjoyable. Almost.

"I don't suppose you had some sort of help, did you? It would be a shame if someone carried you through the first test, only to find that you fail miserably during the second."

"I won't fail."

The man's voice was low, almost a whisper. Even so, those three words were filled with an enraged determination. He must have hit closer to the mark than he had intended. He wasn't going to let that stop him from having his fun, though.

"Oh? So, I take it that you did receive some sort of help, then. Did your little helper decide to abandon you, or was he simply unaware that you were following?"

"How I made it out of that minefield is none of your business," the man replied. "And if you keep on asking, you're going to regret it."

"I'm shaking in my boots," Ω-17 said drily. "Now that you've threatened me properly, care to share your secret? I'm simply dying to know."

"Ask one more time, and you really will be dying." The man raised an arm, and a curved blade sprung out of the metal casing around his wrist. "I'm not in the best mood right now."

"Neither am I," he replied. "You've threatened me twice now. It's a simple question, and I think I deserve an answer after all the trouble you've given me."

Without another word, the man swung a fist at him. He avoided the blow easily enough—he had seen it coming before his opponent had even decided to strike him. What confused him, however, was that the man had not used the blade which he had already drawn. He was clearly angry enough to use it, so why didn't he?

When the second blow came, Ω-17 snatched the man's wrist mid-swing. With a quick twisting motion, he drove the man to his knees. Ω-17 looked into his eyes, and saw that the rage was still there. He sat still, however, doing nothing more than glare back.

"You're an odd one," Ω-17 said. "Not the most well-equipped, and certainly not the brightest, but you know what not to do. Why didn't you use that blade on me? You're obviously not afraid of any consequences that could arise." If he had been afraid of punishment, he wouldn't have attacked at all. A shame he wasn't a telepath—he was actually curious now, and asking was such a bother. This was one of the times when Alee would have actually been useful to have around, a realization which irked him.

"I don't like killing people," the man replied. "Even when they're entitled psychic brats like you."

"It's the rare person who likes killing," Ω-17 stated, "but most people aren't all that concerned with what they do and don't like when they're seeing red."

"If I killed everyone who pissed me off, then every single person in my hometown would be dead. Once you're in the real world for a bit, you learn how to hold it in."

"Are you implying that I haven't been living in the real world?" The man's accusation was closer to the truth than he knew, but that was no reason to admit it.

"I'm not implying anything. It's plain as day, just from the way you act. You've never done an honest day's work in your life, so you're bored and you take out that boredom on others. You probably don't even see me as a person, do you?"

Well, this conversation had taken a rather interesting turn. What had been meant to be a diversion from wandering around the city had turned into Ω-17 being interrogated by a man who was at his mercy. In spite of himself, he felt his lips crack open into a smile. He let go of the man's wrist, and allowed him get back onto his feet.

"That's surprisingly perceptive of you. I'll be interested in watching you grow, if you can make it through testing. What's your name?"

"I'll give you mine after you give me yours." The man rubbed his wrist as he spoke, eying him suspiciously.

"I suppose I should have expected as much. I'm Ω-17. And yes, I know that's an odd name."

The man's mouth hung open, and he had a confused look on his face. Clearly, he hadn't expected an "entitled psychic brat" to be able to predict what he was going to say. He would be an amusing person to watch, if for nothing else than his blundering.

"I'm Jak," the man replied. "Now, if we're done here, I'd like to be on my way."

Ω-17 shrugged in response. "I suppose I have no reason to keep you. Be careful, Jak—I'm looking forward to keeping an eye on you."

Jak grunted, walking past Ω-17 without meeting his gaze. It was not out of fear, though. If anything, he would have to describe it as stubbornness. When Jak was out of sight, Ω-17 walked inside the nearest building—a small diner with the less than creative name "The Smoked Ham." Inside, he was unsurprised to find that their specialty dish was, in fact, a steak of smoked ham. More interesting, however, was the group of people he saw sitting at one of the booths in the corner of the room. Perhaps he would be able to find himself another playmate to while away the time...

###  Rojr

Rojr shuddered as the man who had just single-handedly overpowered his opponent walked into the diner. He hadn't been able to hear anything that had been going on outside, but what he had seen was clear enough. This was not someone to make angry. As the man walked past the booth where he was sitting, Rojr looked down at the floor to avoid drawing his attention.

"Something wrong?"

At the sound of Ren's voice, Rojr snapped his head back up. When he realized that all the eyes at the table were on him, he shook his head silently, not wanting to draw any unnecessary attention to his concerns.

"I'm an empath," Ren reminded him, "and something just scared the hell out of you. The longer it takes for you to talk, the more curious I'm going to get, and the more I'm going to poke around and have to feel your fear. So, what's the problem?"

Knowing that he wouldn't be able to argue his way out of an explanation, Rojr let out a muted sigh. He pointed toward the man who had just entered the diner, and Ren's gaze followed the gesture.

"He looks familiar," Ren commented. "Where have I seen him before?"

"He's an applicant," Alex provided.

"Well then, what say we give him a little visit, see if he's worth that shock Rojr just gave me?"

Without another word, both men stood up from their seats and made their way over to the mystery man. El muttered something under her breath, but he couldn't quite make it out. Nervously, Rojr watched as Ren and Alex sat down on either side of the man.

"They'll be fine," Aleeṡa cooed.

"As long as Ren doesn't do anything stupid," El countered. "He's in the habit of doing things without thinking, especially when he's trying to be helpful."

"They'll be fine," Aleeṡa repeated. Rojr turned to face the two women, hoping that their conversation might turn to something that would help keep him distracted. It did prove distracting, but not in the way that he had hoped.

"What are we doing here?" El's question caught Aleeṡa off guard, and Rojr found himself feeling confused as well. He had heard them talk about how they had made it out of the minefield, and their methods put him to shame. But then, he hadn't really been expecting to be among the applicants to make it through testing to begin with.

"What do you mean? We're here to become Slayers, right?"

"Yeah, but why? It's not like Slayers are the only people who can make a difference in the world. You've got more than enough talent to become a doctor—why not help people that way instead?"

"Well," Aleeṡa answered hesitantly, "as a Slayer, I can help the people who do the helping. They're not invincible, and somebody has to be there to patch them up. Figure that might as well be me. Why are we talking about this now, though? We've already had this conversation before."

"I know. I just...needed some reassurance, was all. It's one thing to tell yourself that you're going to take these exams, but it's something else altogether to actually be in one."

"We made it," Aleeṡa said. "That's all that matters. And if it starts getting to your head, just tell Ren. I'm sure he'd be more than willing to help deal with the stress."

At the mention of Ren, all three of their heads turned to watch the interaction at the counter. Ren sat to the man's left, smiling and sipping at a drink. Alex, however, looked less than happy. He had his arms crossed beneath his chest, and wore a scowl openly on his face. The man who sat between them seemed not to notice Alex, and he was exchanging banter with Ren. They were too far away for Rojr to make out the words, but Ren's sudden roar of laughter was loud enough to make him flinch.

"See? They're fine." Rojr looked back at the women just soon enough to see El's deadpan reaction to Aleeṡa's words.

"Look again," she said. "Alex is about to pull something." There was a strangely superior quality to her voice as she spoke. Rojr hadn't known her for long, but she didn't seem like the type of person to gloat unduly. He turned his attention back to the three men, a sense of trepidation building as he began to watch Alex more closely. He wasn't just scowling—he was glaring daggers at the man. Even after noticing that, however, Rojr was completely unprepared for what happened next.

The man in the middle said something, and Alex slammed his fist on the counter, knocking over his stool as he stood upright. Ren tried to slip between the two, and succeeded in being knocked to the floor by punch that must have been meant for the other man. El and Aleeṡa were rushing toward the scene before Ren had even touched the ground, but they weren't able to get there before Alex lashed out again. Rojr watched on in horror, already imagining how this would all end.

Alex's blow met empty air as the man ducked beneath his fist, hands casually tucked into his side pockets. When Alex went in for a third strike, the man snapped a short kick between his legs, still sitting in his stool as Alex sank to the ground in pain. Aleeṡa and El knelt down beside Alex and Ren respectively, and the other man took another bite of his meal as he watched them. Rojr sat transfixed, his mind in a standstill as it tried to make sense of what had just happened.

The women dragged Ren and Alex back to their booth, each of them sitting down with an audible thump. When they were all seated again, Alex stared at Ren with a look of incredulity.

"Why did you get in the way? You heard what he said!"

"Yes, I did. You should have said something back to him." Ren spoke with a swollen lip, and he pinched at it before continuing, squeezing a rivulet of blood onto his fingers. "Although, I suppose I should be glad you didn't try to shoot him. You were out of line, but so was he."

From the look on Alex's face, it was clear that he didn't think he had been out of line at all. He continued to stare heatedly at Ren as he wiped his bloody fingers on his pants, belatedly realizing that there was a box of napkins sitting at the end of the table.

"What did he say?" Aleeṡa's question hung unanswered for a moment as Ren and Alex exchanged a series of glances. After several seconds of silence, Ren spoke with what was probably meant to be a smirk. It was hard to tell, with his lip as it was.

"He insulted Aleeṡa's honor."

"You expect me to believe that?" El's voice was sharp, and Rojr found himself wishing that he could be somewhere else.

"No," Ren answered, "but I think Aleeṡa will. And it's close enough to the truth that Omega over there probably wouldn't deny it."

Rojr cocked his head in confusion, and saw that he was not the only one. Aleeṡa and El looked just as puzzled as he was at the name he had used.

"He's a science project," Alex spat. "Part of some State-funded initiative to breed psychics. He doesn't have a name, just a number: Ω-17. Thinks it makes him better than the rest of us."

"Oh, my god."

At Aleeṡa's utterance, Rojr made a cross over his chest without thinking. He saw a flash in Ren's eyes, and suddenly realized what he had just done. None of the others seemed to notice, however, and Ren didn't say anything. Even so, he was too distracted to listen to the rest of their conversation. The face Ren had made had come and gone too quickly for him to catch any emotion behind it—he had only been able to see that Ren had seen.

They left several minutes later, intentionally not looking in Ω-17's direction. Alex muttered something under his breath as they passed him, and Rojr held his breath from then until they had all walked outside. At that point, Ren asked the question he had been hoping to avoid having to answer.

"Rojr, are you Catholic?"

In response, he opened his mouth wordlessly, trying to formulate something to say. The others were looking at him as well, curiosity plain on their faces. After a drawn-out silence, he decided to forget about speaking and gave a short, sharp nod. Ren's face split into a wide grin, and his lip started bleeding all over again. Holding his breath, Rojr steeled himself against the coming barrage of mockery.

"Why didn't you tell us? They normally pray before meals, right? Is it okay for you not to?"

Rojr let his breath out in a long, confused sigh. Out of the group, Alex was the only one whose face didn't appear to be genuinely concerned. He arched his brow, and Aleeṡa spoke up quickly.

"My father is a rabbi, so we're all pretty used to the whole 'religion' thing. Actually, most people in Pinnacle should at least be okay with it—it's a military school, and chaplains have always been a part of the military."

At the mention of Aleeṡa's father, Alex's sneer quickly morphed itself into something closer to concern. His eyes still said that he wanted nothing to do with Rojr's religion, but at least it looked like he wouldn't be openly mocking him for it.

"Thanks," he said. "But don't worry about the praying-before-eating bit. Most of us do it, but it's not anything crucial. We're really not as strict about those things as most people seem to think."

It was a short explanation, but it seemed to suffice. They made their way back to campus, and Ren pestered him with questions the whole way back. Yes, he owned a Bible. No, he didn't know the pope. No, he didn't pray five times a day—that was for Muslims. Yes, so was Ramadan.

When they made it back to campus, the sun was still up. They stayed at the edge of the courtyard, and Rojr found himself eying the people milling about. One of them looked familiar—the man he had followed out of the minefield earlier. Looking back, trusting in the judgment of someone he didn't know hadn't been the smartest move he could have made, but he had been too panicked at the time to think of anything that he could have done himself. The man's gaze met his, and there was a knowing look in his eye. He approached, and Rojr felt his spine straighten as the man drew near. He looked Rojr up and down before speaking, and his voice was dripping with disdain.

"You're certainly not a fighter, and I know you were following me through the courtyard this morning. Just what is it that made you come here?"

"Well, I..." Rojr felt himself freeze up at the man's question. He knew why he was here, but it sounded stupid to him now. Coming here as an escape had sounded so much better when he was safe at home.

"Is there a problem?" Ren closed the short distance between himself and Rojr, standing by his side and staring into the man's eyes. He waved his arm to point to the others as he continued.

"We're with him. You might want to think twice before starting something here."

"You look like you've already lost one fight today," the man countered. "Same goes for the other man. You expect me to be scared of you two?"

"No, I expect you to be scared of the five of us. Four psychics, two of us armed. I don't know what you have tucked in that pocked of yours, but with these odds, I really don't need to."

The man blinked in surprise, and so did Rojr. How had Ren known that he was a psychic? Some people could sense psionic talent in others, but he barely had any power to be sensed. After a moment of tense silence, the man shrugged his shoulders and turned around.

"I have more important things to do than deal with all of you, anyway."

As the man walked away from them, Rojr turned to look at Ren, not bothering to hide the confused look on his face. Ren answered his question before he even had the chance to ask it.

"I made an educated guess. You're much more nervous than a normal person, so I assumed you had some sort of anxiety disorder that was going untreated. And, seeing as you seem smart and you're not obviously poor, I figured the only other reason for you to not medicate yourself would be so you don't dull your psionic ability."

"Oh." Rojr felt slightly foolish for not realizing that Ren would be able to piece that together. He did have a general anxiety disorder, and Ren was an empath. He supposed it only made sense.

"Speaking of ignoring medical treatment," El quipped, "when were you planning on getting that lip looked at?"

Ren brushed a finger against his injured mouth and gave her a mischievous grin.

"You don't like it? I thought girls were attracted to tough guys."

"No, I don't like it," El snapped, "and I'm sure you like it even less. It's your face."

Ren's response to that was a silent shrug. Aleeṡa propped open her first aid kit, but Ren was already walking away from them. When she called after him, he answered in a loud voice.

"I'll just visit the nurse's office instead. They'll have better equipment, and they might have lollipops, too."

With that, Ren shrank into the distance. Their little group continued to stand on the outskirts of the campus, watching as the sun set behind the cityscape. Rojr checked his watch as the sun sank slowly out of sight. It was 20:07. Four more hours.

###  Joosef

Joosef walked away from the man who had confronted him, jaw clenched at the thought of having to run away from a fight. This was the second time today that he had found himself in a situation which he could not deal with on his own, and he told himself that it would be the last. Now, he had to do some last-minute preparations for the coming test. He hadn't wanted Mooree to know about this part of his plan—it required a little more finesse than the man seemed to be capable of.

Walking onto the campus proper, he found a directory and looked for the location of the administrative building. After some searching, he found it—Magister Hall, at the far end of the campus. Devoting the map to memory, he made his way toward his destination quickly. It wouldn't surprise him if there were security officers patrolling the campus to make sure none of the applicants were doing exactly what it was that he intended to do. He made his way to Magister Hall without incident, however, and its doors were already wide open when he reached it. Furrowing his brows, he stretched out his senses for any sign of danger, living or otherwise.

When it appeared as though the coast was clear, he walked inside with little hesitation. The setup was obviously some sort of trap, but he hadn't the slightest idea what that trap was. He supposed that he would simply have to find out as he went along. It wouldn't be the first time he had sprung a trap in order to learn how it worked, and he had every confidence in his ability to deal with whatever came next. Walking through the open door, he looked about and saw...

Nothing. There was nothing at all inside the entryway. No furniture, no paintings, no signs. It was completely and utterly empty. When he pushed open the door which led deeper inside, he found that yet again the room beyond was completely devoid of any furnishings whatsoever. Feeling confused and irritated, he continued to push his way through every door he could find, seeing again and again that there was nothing at all inside. The entire building was empty.

He paced about the empty halls, his frustration slowly mounting. He checked, double-checked, triple-checked, and still couldn't even find a single thing that looked like it wasn't part of the building itself. Letting out an angry hiss, he was startled to hear a voice echo through the room he had wandered into.

"Command unregistered. Please try again."

His anger was gone in an instant, and he felt a smile creep across his face. Of course. Pinnacle was the training ground for Slayers, so it only made sense that it would have the best technology available. Why not automated rooms? They were expensive, but he doubted money was any issue for a State-funded institution. Taking a moment to check his smartpad for the proper command, he spoke as clearly as he could.

"Initiate daytime operations."

In response, the walls around him began to emit a whining sound. Steel and plastic furniture seemed to grow out of the walls and floor, setting itself firmly in place. Joosef had to step out of the way of a water cooler which began to rise up from directly beneath him. When the noise had stopped, he was standing in the center of a fully-functional office. There were desks, chairs, and computers sitting in little cubicles, each labeled with a different name. Peeking his head into the hallway, Joosef saw that there were now chairs lining the walls of the hall, as well as several LCD billboards.

Searching through the building for the fourth time, he came across a door labeled "WATERS, ABIGAAL." He pushed the door open, making a point not to step inside right away. Not only was Waters the dean, but she was also a world-renowned Slayer. If she cared at all about potential students cheating their way into Pinnacle, she would certainly have some sort of surprise waiting for anyone wandering into her office.

Peeking inside, he made note of every object he saw. A large desk took up most of the room, its mahogany standing in stark contrast against the monotonous white surrounding it. There were three chairs: one behind the desk, the other two in front. Several photographs lined the walls, depicting various people who he assumed were Waters' family. The only thing that looked suspicious was a small, bulbous protrusion coming out of the ceiling just above the center of the desk.

Thinking that the bulb could be some sort of motion sensor, he thrust his hand inside and pulled it out again quickly. When nothing happened, he cautiously stepped one foot through the door. As soon as his toe touched the floor, a mechanized voice called out from somewhere within the room.

"You are not on the list of persons permitted to enter this room. Leave the building now, or security will be summoned to escort you from the premises. Your presence has been recorded."

Cursing silently, Joosef backed away from the door. Knowing he wouldn't have much time, he made his way back to the room full of cubicles and activated one of the computers as quickly as he could. Producing a small chip from his pocket, he placed it in the proper slot and let it do its work. There was no guarantee he would be able to find what he needed on this computer, but he would still have better luck here than in Waters' office.

Once his chip had broken into the network, he scrolled through hundreds of folders in an effort to find one that looked promising. Of course, the name of every file was codified in such a way that would make finding any information in such a short time almost impossible. Hissing in frustration, Joosef tried to burn his gaze into the monitor, as if it would respond to his anger. He selected a folder at random, finding that the files within had similarly scrambled names.

Raising an eyebrow, Joosef let his realization settle for a moment. The file names weren't coded; they were only scrambled. KLA2ER13N5D was the name of the folder he had opened—it had to be the calendar for either 2531 or 2513. It would be an aggravating task, but he could find what he needed. The question was whether he would have the time...

Skimming over the names of the folders once again, he sorted out the jumble of letters while reading dozens of items ahead. ANT92DSEE25 would be ATENDENS 2529, AT2DN50ES3EN was ATENDENS 2030—he skipped over the rest of the attendance files, knowing what they looked like. II5ṠA3ANṠU2N4EE looked like a promising name. When he clicked, he found only two files within: ATS2AJ and J1TSAA. Opening the first file, he felt his lips crack into a smile.

Plugging his smartpad into the machine, he downloaded the file he needed and shut the system down. After glancing around the room to make sure he was still alone, he made his way toward the exit. As he left, he called out a command for the building to return to its dormant state. Walking out the door, he found himself almost running into the one person he had least wanted to see at that moment: Abigaal Waters herself.

She stood about 1.8 meters tall, towering over him. He stood silently, unsure what he should do. The look on her face made it perfectly clear that she knew what he had done. He didn't dare meet her gaze.

"You ran away because of a threat," she said. "That wasn't a very brave thing to do."

"Brave men die," he replied. Waters smiled at that, patting him on the shoulder.

"Let's see if your caution pays off then, shall we?"

With that, she walked past him and into Magister Hall. She had known, and she hadn't done anything. Today must have been his lucky day.

###  Alburt

Alburt sat in the center of the courtyard, the taste of radish still on his tongue. The sun had set a few hours ago, but there was still some time before their next test. Alee sat beside him, tossing grapes playfully into her mouth. When she finished, the vine was tossed carelessly away. Before he could comment on her act of littering, she turned to face him.

"So, why exactly did you come here?"

Alee's question caught Alburt off guard. He scratched his chin in thought, suddenly feeling very conscious of the stubble that was growing there.

"I suppose I came for the opportunity," he offered. "In the bloc, most men are either hunters for farmers. Very few people have time to learn anything else. Some of us never even learn how to read—there's not much use for books when all your time is spent trying to stay alive."

"You do realize what a gamble that is, right?" Alee looked at him curiously, and he felt his face mimic hers. Sighing, she explained.

"Pinnacle Academy has a notoriously low acceptance rate, but I imagine that you would at least know that much. That wouldn't be too big of a deal in and of itself, but Pinnacle is a State-run facility: anyone found on its premises without proper clearance is considered to have committed treason. And only State personnel, such as those who are accepted as students here, are granted that clearance. See the problem now?"

"I see two of them," Alburt replied, "but I've already come to terms with the possibility of dying, otherwise I wouldn't want to become a Slayer. What about the applicants who left by bus earlier?"

"They were probably gassed."

Alee's conjecture sounded as if she were trying to predict the weather. Alburt felt his eyes widen in shock. Chemical weapons were banned—they had been considered immoral since before the formation of the State.

Alee stood up and stretched, offering him a helping hand. He accepted, still trying to wrap his head around what he had just heard. Even if there was gas involved, what was to keep the applicants from trying to escape?

"They would pump something fast-acting and undetectable into the air first, just to knock them out. After that, they would be able to use something more potent to finish the job. Sorry," Alee smiled apologetically at him, "you were thinking too loudly, and I couldn't help but listen in."

Alburt's face contorted itself into a scowl, but not because of Alee's intrusion upon his thoughts. He had heard his grandfather complain about the State being corrupt, but he had assumed that what he had heard was simply the rambling of a bitter old man who had been on the wrong side of the war. If Alee spoke the truth, however, then perhaps his grandfather was right.

Following Alee as she wandered aimlessly around the courtyard, Alburt continued to ponder this new and disturbing idea. It wasn't just his grandfather who complained about the State—almost everyone over the age of thirty in his village harbored some sort of grief against it. Chief Executive Baalam Cain's name had been spat on more times that he could count, and many of the people in his village seemed to hold a personal grudge against the man. Alburt had always preferred peace over strife, so he had chosen to distance himself from such sentiments.

"Chert."

He muttered the curse under his breath, but Alee still raised her brow at him. When he didn't explain, she walked on. After a while, they wandered away from the courtyard and into the city. Alburt was so caught up in his thoughts that he almost didn't notice when Alee came to an abrupt stop. Looking around, he saw that they were in a small alley between two homes. Alee spoke, her back still facing him.

"Alburt, what do you know about the State?"

"What do you mean?"

Alee spun around, looking into his eyes with frightening intensity. "What have you heard about the State that hasn't come from a press release? People in your village, visitors, your family friends from Mexico—what have they told you?"

"The people of my village hate the State," he answered, feeling exposed while doing so. He wasn't ignorant enough to not know that speaking ill of the State was often not considered any different than acting against it. "It's a common sentiment in the bloc—most Russians are still bitter about losing the war."

"I haven't told you about my program yet, have I?" There was a strange quality to Alee's voice.

"You were part of a genetic experiment," Alburt replied. "It's how you got your powers."

"That's not all there is to it," Alee told him. "It was a State-run operation. Giving you all of the details would take more time than we have, but I can tell you this: it was hell. We lived in constant fear of torture, death, and dismemberment. Those of us who lived beyond childhood were forced to undergo extensive surgery designed to augment our abilities. Legally speaking, we aren't even considered to be human. I'm classified as an S5—a fifth-level cyborg—more machine than woman."

"Why are you telling me this?" Pity didn't seem right—her face was too hard for that. And it was too late for her to be warning him not to go to Pinnacle.

"I want you to know what it is you're signing up for," she said. "I don't expect life in Pinnacle to be at all what I've experienced, but what I just told you is the truth about the State's operations. They're very good at hiding things from the public eye, but most people know that there's more going on than what's at the surface. I didn't want you to stay too innocent for too long."

They returned to the courtyard in silence. As they made their way back onto the green, Alburt caught sight of a familiar face—the man who had picked a fight with him earlier. Mooree, if he remembered correctly. He was wearing a smile now, and made no attempt to hide that he was watching Alburt. Tapping Alee on the shoulder, Alburt pointed to his head. She nodded, and he attempted to think to her, feeling incredibly foolish as he did so.

Can you sense emotions?

Yes, but directions are tricky. I can feel what you're looking for, though.

That was good enough for him. Alburt took in his surroundings, making a point not to look suspicious. Chattering absentmindedly about the weather, he used his words as an excuse to look all around him. There were only two people in the crowd who appeared to be watching. One was Mooree, and the other was slowly making his way toward them.

The man who was approaching them was small and wiry, slipping past the people around him as if they weren't there at all. An agile man, and confident judging from his gait. While Mooree had been full of himself, this new man appeared to have earned his confidence. This next fight looked to be a little less one-sided. Alburt clenched his fists, readying himself. Before the man could act, however, Alee spoke up.

"Kiil Wolfe, 17. Born in Malvern, Arkansas. You have a knife strapped to your arm, and you were offered exactly 135,250 currens to injure Alburt here. Not a good price, considering the risk."

Alburt looked at the man in surprise. Kiil had stopped dead in his tracks, his face painted with shock at Alee's words. Alburt was shocked, too—135,000 currens was more money than his entire village made after selling a season's worth of vegetables. Kiil recovered quickly however, and he drew a blade from inside his sleeve. At the sight of bare steel, Alburt felt his instincts as a hunter overcome him.

The next few seconds were a blur, and he came back to himself straddling Kiil's prone body, his forearm pressed against the man's windpipe. Standing up, he noticed a gash running across the back of his hand that was bleeding profusely. It wasn't deep, but it had scraped away most of the skin between his wrist and his knuckles. He pressed against the wound with his other hand, but it did little good. There was too much blood—the blow must have hit a vein.

As that realization hit him, a woman ran over with an open medical kit. She ordered him to lie down, and he realized as he did so that he was beginning to feel light-headed. She placed something very cold on his hand, and he stared at her face in an effort to anchor himself to something. More faces appeared next to her own, and he wondered if he was seeing double. No, that wasn't right. The faces were different. One was Alee, but the other one...he wasn't sure.

There was the sound of snapping fingers, and his eyes darted toward its source. The woman in the middle smiled and helped him sit up. Behind her, he could see a crowd gathering around Kiil. He was a little red in the face, but he seemed to be fine. The woman who had treated him said something, and he stared at her blankly. After snapping her fingers again, she repeated herself.

"You're lucky I was nearby. That was a nasty cut, and you lost a lot of blood. We've all got a tough night ahead of us, but do your best to take it easy. Push yourself too hard, and you might pass out in the middle of the next test."

He thanked her for the help, and stood up. The ground swayed beneath his feet, but he managed to keep from falling over. Alee reached out and wrapped an arm around him, helping to keep him steady. The woman who had treated him snapped her medical kit shut and walked away, muttering to herself. The third woman—the one he hadn't recognized—stayed for a while longer, however.

"The way you fight looks familiar."

She said the words as if they had some sort of hidden meaning. When he gave no indication that he understood, she tried again.

"Mundus ardebit."

"Sorry," Alburt said, "but I don't speak Spanish."

"Latin," the woman corrected. "Who taught you to fight?"

"Nobody taught me," Alburt said. The woman's eyes said she didn't believe him. She kept her peace, however, and walked away. He watched her go, then asked Alee for the time. Rather than answer, she showed him her smartpad, its face a jumble of numbers. After staring for far too long, he was able to make sense of what he saw. It was 23:45. Fifteen minutes.

###  Kaala

Kaala walked away from the man she had just confronted, wondering what it was that he was hiding. She had been sure that he would respond to her words, but he hadn't even recognized them for what they were. Whatever he said, somebody must have taught him how to fight. His movements were too efficient, too much like her own. Of course, he could have simply had a teacher who used similar methods, but why hide it? Legitimate martial training was expensive—most people who had it flaunted it.

The man's secrets didn't matter at the moment, however. She reminded herself of that, glancing about the courtyard nervously. It was almost time. Resting her hands on her hips, she felt a comforting bulge beneath each palm. She was ready for this.

There was still some time before midnight, however, and she was too nervous to stand still. She started pacing, trying to burn off some of the energy that she could feel building up inside her. Whatever was coming next, being too excited wouldn't do her any good. She had to stay calm. Unfortunately, that was much easier said than done.

She wasn't the only one there who had the jitters—most people she saw seemed to feel just as nervous as her. Some fidgeted, some were chatting about their fears. Some were trying to hide their anxiety, but that only made it all the more noticeable. Closed eyes, overly deep breaths, forced smiles. It was all a show, but this show's performers were also the intended audience. She had known a few brothers and sisters in arms who had gone through such rituals before battle, and she had grown used to spotting them.

Herself, she preferred to move. All of the energy inside her built up as battle grew near, until she felt like she would explode from all the pressure. She wanted to run, jump, scream—something. Anything.

And so, she kept herself moving. Walking was enough to keep the pressure bearable, and it was a simple enough task that it allowed her to plan out what she would do next. That only worked when she had some idea of what was coming, however. This time, there was nothing for her to plan for. Pinnacle Academy's operations were one of the State's most guarded secrets, and those who survived its initiation process were sworn into secrecy on the threat of death. Not officially, of course. On paper, they simply elected to keep silent out of a sense of loyalty.

As she walked, a holographic image suddenly sprang into existence in the center of the courtyard. It was a large timer, accompanied by a piercing bleep. Every eye was on the display, sporting a brightly lit 10:00. Ten more minutes.

Kaala watched as the seconds scrolled down, measuring the distance to the moment they all awaited. Cracking her knuckles, she kept on walking. Her feet were moving quicker now, although she had nowhere to hurry to. She circled the luminescent clock, counting down with it.

09:00.

She tried to crack her knuckles again, but there was no sound. It didn't matter. She had to keep on moving.

08:00.

There was a bounce in her step now. She could feel her heart pounding, flooding her veins with fresh blood. It was almost time.

07:00.

Somebody nearby was starting to hyperventilate. She could hear his panicked breathing, and had to fight her urge to offer him help. If he couldn't handle the wait, he would almost certainly not be able to survive whatever was coming next.

06:00.

She wasn't quite sure if she was walking or jogging anymore. The timer had a slight blur to it, spinning slowly like a lazy top. There were several other applicants who had begun imitating her, milling about the courtyard while waiting for the minutes to pass. She caught sight of a few more people letting their nerves get the better of them, their faces starting to grow pale in anticipation.

05:00.

One of the applicants feinted. She had been sitting down in the grass, watching the timer intently. Then, all of a sudden, she had jumped to her feet. She had been one of the people whose faces had gone pale, and the rush of blood from her exertion must have been more than her body could handle. She had swooned instantly, falling to her knees before her face plummeted to the ground below. She was unhurt, but that hardly mattered at this point. If she wasn't awake by the time the exam started, she would be dead. Even if she did wake in time, someone in such a fragile state would almost certainly fail.

04:00.

More than halfway there. Only four more minutes. Kaala was still pacing, but she could no longer feel her legs moving. Her attention was focused solely on the image she was circling, its face changing constantly. Every second brought a new change, and every change marked the passing of another second. It was even there when she blinked—the afterimage had been burned into her retinas from all the staring.

She looked away from the timer for a moment, knowing that having anything wrong with her eyes during the coming time could greatly affect her chances at victory. Sight was key in battle, and she didn't want to die because she had been blinded by a clock. When she could close her eyes and see nothing once more, she turned back to the timer.

03:00.

Most of the applicants who had been sitting were now on their feet. None of the others had feinted, it would seem. Kaala eyed them all, seeing that even those who had been trying to act composed before were now letting their nerves show. Tapping their feet, bouncing in place, biting their lips—everyone was doing something. She even caught a few people with their lips moving silently, offering up prayers to whatever higher power they thought were out there.

She began looking for weapons, keeping a running tally as she went. About a dozen handguns, twice as many knives, a handful of rifles, and a few less orthodox options as well. She knew that most of the applicants who went in armed would be hiding that decision, so she assumed what she saw was only a portion of what was actually there. That made about forty of them definitely armed, and probably all the rest of them as well. Not that she was defenseless, but her preparations didn't mean quite as much when so many others made no attempt to hide their own weapons.

The seconds were stretching themselves out now, like a spring as it was being pulled taut. Kaala felt her body grow taut as well. It was almost time, and she was no more prepared than anyone else.

02:00.

Kaala stopped her pacing. It was time to stay still, to let the energy build up. The seconds dragged on now, but she knew that soon time would be a blur. If she wasn't ready to act, she might not get the chance to.

Others seemed to be reigning themselves in as well, performing various breathing techniques or muttering mantras to themselves. For her part, Kaala simply stood there. She had done her worrying, and now it was time to be ready. She reminded herself that she was likely the only person in the courtyard with any experience in battle. Certainly the only person with experience in her particular forte. It was possible that there were a few soldiers in the mix, but they would be used to fighting as part of a massive unit, something which crushed all resistance with sheer weight in numbers and superior firepower. That sort of training would be almost completely useless here.

She might not be any more prepared than the rest in any material sense, but she had her training. That, at least, gave her an edge. And in a contest where failure meant death, every advantage she could take was one that she would seize upon without hesitation. After all that she had gone through to be here, she was not going to let herself fail. This was her chance to redeem herself, and she knew that she would succeed. There was no other option.

01:00.

She could feel the pressure rising. Her skin crawled with excitement, and her lips pulled themselves back into a tight smile. Her heart thundered in her chest, and she could feel the warmth of her blood as it coursed through her. One minute. So close.

Reaching for her hips, she slipped her hands into the pockets hidden just below the waistband of her pants. Her fingers wrapped around twin metal cylinders, exactly three centimeters in diameter and ten in length. She had carried them on her person at all times for years, and they were as much a part of her as her drumming heart. With so little time left, revealing their presence now would offer no real advantage to anyone still unprepared enough to not be carrying a weapon of their own.

Pulling her weapons from their hiding places, she watched the faces of those around her. A few offered looks of open confusion, while most managed to hide their reactions. There was one man, however, who gaped openly. He gave her a wide, toothy grin and a knowing look. She noted that he carried what looked to be an extendible staff of sorts, although he certainly wasn't handling it like it was supposed to be a weapon. His grip was too loose, and he was holding it in a place where it would be almost unusable if he were caught by surprise.

00:30.

Finding the hidden switch on each of her weapons, she pressed them both simultaneously. There was the faintest jolt of pain as they powered on, excess current running over the metal plating for only a moment. She had grown used to it over the years, and it barely even registered to her now. There were newer models that no longer had that particular side effect, but she was used to these ones. They were familiar, comfortable.

Her batons extended to full length in an instant, reaching almost half a meter each. They crackled with electricity as they built up a charge, current looping from hilt to tip and back again. They burned white hot then, additional current no longer needed to keep the reaction going. Heat washed over her arms and hands, which were calloused and used to such treatment. She held her plasma batons at the ready, their ionized sheathes shining brilliantly. Twirling one of them in a circle, she watched as several of the less guarded applicants made a show of being impressed by the display. Shock and awe wasn't a tactic she got to use very often, but it was something she could certainly get used to.

Most of the others were readying their weapons as well, but most of them were standard firearms and unpowered knives. The two androids appeared to have lasers, but everybody else was relying on technology that had been around for centuries. Not that it mattered overly much—a bullet could kill just as easily as a laser beam, and a sharp edge usually cut just as well as plasma could burn. She knew very well that superior technology did not equal an automatic victory.

00:15.

There was a cacophony of guns cocking, safeties being switched off, and bullets being loaded. Knives came out of their sheathes, and the handful of people who had neglected to arm themselves now looked truly terrified. One had at least come with some sort of equipment: a medical kit. Presumably, she would be tagging along with one of the others and offering her skills as needed. Being a medic was a tricky position to be in—you had no weapon, but you were still the enemy. Not everyone respected the noncombatant status of medics, and Kaala found it very unlikely that most people here would let her pass through what came next unscathed.

The girl who had feinted was still lying on the ground, although her face had returned to a more normal color. Now was not the time for her to feel pity, however. She needed to focus. The clock was still ticking, and she needed to be ready for anything. They had woken up this morning in the middle of a minefield—who knew what else the State had planned for them?

00:10.

Ten more seconds. She tightened her grip on the twin batons.

00:09.

Kaala breathed in sharply, forcing herself to remain still.

00:08.

There was an immense pressure to move. It felt as if her body was about to fling itself in ten directions all at once.

00:07.

She held her breath now, keeping her lungs swollen with air. Concentrating on that helped her keep still. She needed to stay still.

00:06.

Even the breath inside her lungs wanted her to do something. She could feel it pressing against her, pushing for a way out. Probing, prodding, seeking escape.

00:05.

She still kept her breath trapped, tucked away inside her chest. It wanted to be free, but she would not allow it. It was too soon. Still, she itched to do something. She told herself to stay rigid, and her body obeyed.

00:04.

So close. It was almost time. Just a few more seconds. Her lungs raged against her now, burning with a desire to expel the air which had been trapped for what felt like an eternity. She could feel something electric running over her, as if she had suddenly become statically charged.

00:03.

She would not exhale. Not yet. It was a simple task, but it was an important one nonetheless. She prided herself in her will, and she needed that will to be strong now. It was only a few more seconds. If she couldn't manage that, then she could not guarantee her victory in what would come. And she needed to win.

00:02.

Her entire being trembled. Intellectually, she knew that it was too slight for anyone to see, but it still felt like she was having full-body seizures all the same. Darting her eyes toward the tip of one of her batons, she saw that it was wavering by the most minute amount—only a centimeter or two, nothing more. They were almost there, now.

00:01.

In this final moment, she allowed herself to vent the pressure that had been building up inside her chest. It was a small allowance, and only the faintest flow of air was granted passage through her lips. The stream was slow and steady, not even making a dent in the urgency that she felt. She had to move. She wanted to sprint across the courtyard and back just to get rid of some of this energy. It was unbearable.

00:00.

At the moment the timer struck zero, a voice echoed through the courtyard. It was the same voice as before, and Kaala listened intently. She desperately needed to know what to do.

"Good evening, everyone. Your second task will be similar in nature to the first: you will need to make your way through a maze. An opening will appear shortly to an underground cavern. Each of you will make your way inside. Once all of the applicants are within the chamber, the entrance will close and the maze will open. You will not be monitored while in the maze. Only the first forty applicants to escape will be allowed to enlist in Pinnacle Academy. That is all."

As the voice finished speaking, there was a loud rumble that came from below. The timer blinked out of existence, and the ground beneath it began to fold away. A set of stairs was revealed, covered in soil and leading into pitch-black darkness. Everyone stared at the hole for a moment, afraid to be the first to enter. Kaala had her batons, but she knew from experience that the light they gave off made for poor illumination. Even so, it was better than nothing.

She took a step forward at the same moment as several others, and each of them paused for a moment to see who would take another step. Not wanting to give up her momentum, Kaala stepped toward the stairs again. The others were watching her, waiting to see what happened. Even if nobody knew the exact nature of what was to come, it was clear enough that it would be something unpleasant.

Before she could walk any further, one of the other applicants pushed his way through the crowd. She could tell by his eyes that he was a cyborg, but he moved more fluidly than most unaugmented humans, never mind those with mechanical parts. He wore a sneer as he strolled past her, peering into the dark below. Without hesitating, he strode down the stairs until he was out of sight. There was not a sound after that, and Kaala could feel that everyone else was getting ready to follow.

Taking advantage of already being so close to the entryway, she made her way down the stairs next. Behind her, she could hear the sounds of people pushing and shoving for the chance to go next. She had wanted to avoid all that—it was just exertion that served no purpose. She had already had more than enough of that while waiting for this test to be announced.

Although the lighting from her batons was poor at best, it was still bright enough to reveal the structure of the tunnel that she found herself in. It was made of concrete, two meters wide and two meters tall. It was small, but not exactly cramped. Fighting would be difficult if the rest of the maze looked like this, however. There wasn't much room to maneuver, and the ceiling was low enough that she might accidentally strike it if she used any overhead blows.

The hallway went on for several minutes before opening up into a large cavern. Her batons lit up the area nearby, but the room stretched far beyond what she could see. Deciding to scout out the area while those behind her struggled to be among the first to enter next, she walked around the circumference of the room to get a sense of its size and shape. There were eight walls, each one the same length and made of concrete that had been smoothed with laserlike precision. There were no obvious openings on any of them, save the one she had entered through. The ceiling was too high for her to see, but she assumed it was made of the same material as everything else. It was hard to tell without being able to see the whole room at once, but she estimated there was a distance of about fifty meters between two opposite walls.

By the time Kaala had finished exploring the chamber, most of the applicants had made their way in. Even as the last few stragglers made their way inside, there was still room to move around. Once everyone was within the concrete walls, there was a rumbling sound again, this time coming from the entrance. There was a flash of light a moment later, blinding Kaala and, judging from their cries of surprise, everyone else as well.

When her eyes adjusted, she saw that the chamber was now fully lit. The ceiling appeared to be almost fifty meters high—she hadn't realized that they were that far underground. The light came from tiny diodes at the corners of each wall, casting off far more light than they should have been able to. Kaala had dealt with the State before, and she had never seen anything so small provide so much light.

Several of the other applicants were marveling at the appliances as well, some of them walking over and poking them, casting enormous shadows across the room. There were several minutes of confusion as they waited for something to happen, and Kaala could tell that some of the applicants were beginning to feel trapped. Just when she started to worry that one of them might do something rash, the voice was back again.

"Now, in past renditions of this exercise, some of the applicants have shown a lack of enthusiasm in this portion of the entrance exam. In order to rectify this problem, we have incorporated a certain motivational tool to make sure everyone at least moves through this first room quickly. When I am finished speaking, seven pathways will appear, one for each wall. One of them leads you to the correct path, while the other six are dead ends. Best of luck to you all."

As the rumbling started up again, Kaala watched the walls carve chunks out of themselves, producing seven identical doorways. The noise didn't stop once the doors were formed, however, and it took her a moment to realize why. The light in the chamber suddenly dimmed, and she looked up to see that the lights on the ceiling were no longer operational. No, she thought. They're not turned off—they're gone. It was difficult to see so far in the now-dim light, but the ceiling was descending.

As the others started to realize as much, a panicked buzz filled the air and people began arguing over which door to take. Kaala looked over each of them quickly, hoping to find something to distinguish one from the others. She was delightfully surprised to find that six of the seven doors led into concrete hallways, while the seventh was the entrance to a hall with medical-white walls. Opting for the obvious choice, she waved her batons back and forth to clear herself a path. After singeing a few who were too slow to get out of her way, she made it to the door with plenty of time to spare. Looking up at the slowly falling ceiling, she saw that it was still less than halfway to the ground. A few others had run into the same hallway as her, but even fewer were trying any of the other paths. Most of the applicants were still either arguing with one another or pondering their decision.

Not wanting to stand around long enough to see how many would survive, she turned and ran. The hallway went on for only a few meters, then took a sharp turn. Then another. And another. It wasn't looking much like a maze, and Kaala was beginning to wonder if she had chosen wrong. Judging by the speed the ceiling had been falling at, she would still have time to try another way...

No. She had made her decision, and she wasn't going to let herself get panicked to the point of standing still. She had to be among the first forty applicants to leave this maze alive, and she was only going to do that if she kept moving. Pushing forward, she continued to follow the hallway's twists and turns. Passing by several others who had slowed down to consider their options, she made no effort to speak to them. This was a race, and the stakes were their lives.

Turning around the next corner, she found herself facing a split path: the hallway was shaped in a T, with no obvious indicator of which way she was meant to go. Even so, it was a choice. She had gone through the right door. Not wanting to waste time thinking about a puzzle with no clues, she picked a direction at random and walked on. She could still make it through this.

##  Appendix
###  Spelling in Song of the Slayers

The Song of the Slayers saga takes place several centuries in the future, and therefore the English used by the characters will not always line up with the English you are used to. The way in which this is most noticeable is the changes that have been made to spelling.

Over the centuries, human society has begun to rely less on written literacy and more on visual literacy (watching the news rather than reading it, as an example). As such, spelling skills began to deteriorate, and a more standardized spelling system was developed to compensate. This system is backed by the global State, and has been in use for several generations. The rules pertaining to spelling are outlined below, although this system also includes instructions for proper use of grammar, punctuation, and syntax, as well as a State-sanctioned dictionary which is updated on an annual basis and is available for free online reference to anyone.

Spelling Regulations, as per State Initiative REED

  * Lower-case letters are no longer used—everything is written in all-caps.

  * When making the sound that corresponds to the name of a vowel, insert the vowel twice (ay/ey becomes AA, aye becomes II, oh becomes OO, etc.)

  * The letter C is no longer in its usual use—a hard c becomes a k, and a soft c becomes an s (craft becomes KRAFT, ace becomes AAS)

  * Soft g becomes J (judge becomes JUJ)

  * Z always makes the "z" sound (is becomes IZ)

  * Silent letters are removed from words (knot becomes NOT)

  * Repetitious consonants are removed (Mississippi becomes MISISIPEE)

  * Letter compounds are no longer used for single consonant sounds. Ph and gh become F, ch becomes C, sh becomes Ṡ, th becomes Ћ, ng becomes η

This is a sample paragraph. The version above is written in modern English, while the one below is written using in-universe spelling. To make the example as strong as possible, I am going through pains to make enough examples that every change can be seen.

ЋIS IZ AA SAMPL PARAGRAF. ЋE VURZN UBUV IZ RITN IN MODRN INGLIṠ, WIIL ЋE WUN BELOO IZ RITN UUSIη IN-UUNIVURS SPELIη. TU MAAK ЋE EXAMPL AZ STROη AZ POSIBL, II AM GOOIη ЋRU PAANZ TU MAAK EENUF EXAMPLZ ЋAT EVREE CAANJ KAN BEE SEEN.

##  Contact the Author

Have questions, comments, or ideas about Song of the Slayers? Email them to Pedes.Cardinalis@yahoo.com. Pedes can also be found at chiefamongpawns.wordpress.com, as well as @PedesCardinalis on Twitter.

## Copyright

Pedes Cardinalis

Song of the Slayers: Verses 1-3

Copyright © 2014 by Pedes Cardinalis

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved

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