When I wake up, it’s in a void without form. It reminds me of a certain kind of dream, where you’re watching events occur from a disembodied perspective, with no body of your own. As soon as I think about my body, I realize with a start that I don’t have one. It’s a discovery that would make my heart race, if I still had one.
A pinprick of light appears in the center of my vision, and I focus on it instantly. Swiftly it comes into focus- my body, viewed from the outside. Eyes open but blank, arms outstretched, tail standing straight up. With a thought, I make it rotate around, momentarily appreciating my own form. It’s starting to become clear where I am. I’m dead.
Or, to be exact, I was dead. The brainband preserved my consciousness, and downloaded it into a ‘blank’ brain, which is currently sitting in a vat of shifting biomass, which will soon become my new body. All of my memories are intact except for the last few seconds, which the system automatically suppresses in the event of a violent or painful death. Grimacing mentally, I give the command to unlock them, and feel a surge of psychic pain as the experience of having my neck snapped bursts back into my mind. Fortunately, it’s over in an instant, like ripping off a bandage. Whoever killed me took care to make it as quick and painless as possible.
Figuring out who did it, and why, can come later. Right now, I’m going to focus on the one upside of having been killed on my first day at the Citadel- the opportunity to update my body. This is my first death, so I’ve been pretty much stuck with the same meat-suit that I’ve had since I was a kid, although it’s obviously aged along with me.
There aren’t many changes I want to make, in all honesty. However, the system pops in with a few helpful recommendations, such as adjusting the position of my tail by about a half-inch, to improve weight distribution. That’s not a feature I remember from when I originally designed my body. Maybe the technology has improved, or maybe Nobles just have access to better tech.
As I explore the options available, the latter starts to seem more and more likely. There are choices that I know for a fact weren’t on the table for someone from Demeter VII. Noting that I had a puncture wound on my old body when I died, the system offers to give me slightly thicker skin, which it assures me won’t impede movement or add significant weight. That, along with a few other surprises, go in my metaphorical shopping cart. If I had a mouth, I’d be grinning.
Externally, my new body looks identical, save for the removal of a tattoo of a thorn on my thigh that I’d been covering up for years. Under the surface, however, it’s a marked improvement over the old model. Nothing game-changing, of course. Serious modifications are still illegal under Imperium law. But this system seems to interpret that law a bit more loosely than the one I used last time, and I take full advantage of that fact.
As soon as I’ve confirmed all my choices, everything goes black once more. An indeterminate amount of time passes in the blink of an eye, and the next thing I know, I can feel again.
The first thing I feel is cold. Although that’s mainly because I didn’t fully register that I was feeling warm until I was dumped unceremoniously out of the tank of warm water I was floating in. The water sloshes around me, pouring down a grate on the ground, as I lay on the ground, freezing, unable to move.
Slowly, experimentally, I try to use my arms. After a few tries, they begin to respond, and I push myself onto my back, shivering in the cool air. That has to be intentional- maybe the rapid temperature change is meant to shock people into consciousness. I still want to murder whoever designed it that way, though. Eventually, my legs start to work again as well, and I manage to pull myself upright, before immediately losing my balance and stumbling into the nearest wall.
I remain like that for a minute or two, eyes firmly shut, breathing shakily. Once I’m reasonably confident that I can stand, I do so, and open my eyes to look around the room. It resembles a shower, but with a large, empty glass pod in the place of the showerhead. The floor is damp with the last drops of the water I was suspended in. Over to one side is a rack with a towel, and a neatly folded Citadel uniform. I wrap myself in the towel, grateful for the warmth it presents, and swiftly dry myself from tip to tail.
With the initial shock of resurrection beginning to pass, I get dressed, and slowly start to ponder the circumstances of my first death. First comes the general context. For the past several decades, almost every Noble in the line of Thorn has died permanently before leaving the Citadel. None of them were killed on their very first day, though. Should I feel honored that they’re taking no chances with me, or insulted that they didn’t even bother giving me a chance to prove I was worth killing?
More importantly, who gave the order? The most popular theory is that it’s the Emperor himself who ordered every Noble in my line to be killed. After all, we have a habit of starting uprisings or masterminding assassination plots against him. It’s not exactly a stretch to say that he might have just decided the safest option was to never allow another one of us to survive the Citadel. Other than that, I don’t really know.
What I do know, however, is that the person who killed me isn’t the same person who was trying to kill me. A broken neck is no way to truekill someone. And it’s certainly a lot less subtle than whatever that dart was. So either there are two different people trying to kill me, one of whom is a lot dumber than the other, or the person who snapped my neck was actually trying to help me.
Truedeath isn’t easy to accomplish. The most common method, a substance called Mindkiller, takes up to a minute to work. It has to, because the whole point is to destroy someone’s personality irreparably. Killing a body is temporary, but killing their mind is permanent. So, if that dart was loaded with Mindkiller, whoever snapped my neck could have been trying to ensure I died, and was resurrected, before it had a chance to turn my mind into a puddle of psychic goo.
Once I’m finished dressing, the door opens, and I make my way out, still somewhat unsteady on my feet. Fortunately, all my muscles have been artificially aged, so I’m not going to have to get twenty years of muscle memory back the hard way. However, there’s still a bit of a mind-body disconnect in the first few minutes after you come back, or so I’ve been told. Hopefully it doesn’t last any longer than that. This may be my first death, but I sincerely doubt it’s going to be my last.
Out in the hall, a woman in a Citadel staff uniform is waiting for me. She’s got some streaks of gray placed strategically in her hair to make her look matronly and nonthreatening, but I don’t let my guard down- although in my current state there really isn’t much I could do to defend myself. Fortunately, she doesn’t make a move, just gives me a sympathetic smile.
“First time, dear?”
“Afraid so,” I reply. The words sound strange to my ears, unfamiliar.
“It’s always the hardest,” she says. “And on your first day, too.”
She glances at the door which I presume leads outside. This must be the Citadel’s medical facility.
“There’s somebody here to see you,” the nurse says at last, somewhat nervously. “He says he was the one who killed you. I can send him away, if you’d like.”
“No, I- I need to talk to him.”
This time, my voice sounds less like that of a stranger. The nurse looks concerned, but opens the door, allowing me to walk out into the lobby. It’s sterile and brightly-lit, in a way that makes me slightly uncomfortable. Under better circumstances, I’d be able to hide that discomfort, but right now I’m in no state to do so. Raising a hand to shield my eyes from the light, I find my way to one of the many empty seats.
The nurse moves as if to put a hand on my shoulder, but draws back as I pull away. No sense in taking chances, when she could have a hidden Mindkiller needle in her palm. Now looking even more concerned, she gestures to the other side of the room, where the only other occupant is sitting.
“That’s him over there. Just call if you need me, dear.”
As she heads over to sit behind the desk, I take a look at my murderer. His gunmetal-gray face is familiar, but I can’t recall his name. Maybe the trauma of dying distracted me. Thanks to the brainband, I can quickly access the memory of him telling me.
“Sander Rebane,” he said. He meets my eyes, and doesn’t react in the slightest as I get up and march over to him.
“Get up.”
He complies silently.
“Come with me.”
Without a word, he follows me out of the building. The bright sunlight stops me in my tracks as I walk out the front door, but he doesn’t try to touch me, just watches. After a moment, I adjust and keep moving. At first I don’t have a particular destination in mind. Then I realize I’ve been unconsciously heading back towards the Hyperion Building, and stop again, this time pulling up the location of the park beneath the bridge that I saw when I first arrived. Apparently, there’s an entrance not far from here. Turning on a dime, I start walking in that direction, and Rebane continues to follow.
“How long has it been?”
“Four hours,” he replies. Then he draws breath, and speaks without having been spoken to, for the first time that I’ve seen. “You should know, I--”
“Did it to save me. I know,” I interrupt, a slight undercurrent of annoyance in my voice. “It was Mindkiller, right? In the dart?”
“Yes.”
“Anybody else nearly get truekilled?”
“I don’t believe so, but I haven’t had time to check. I searched your apartment for any further traps, found none, and proceeded to the resurrection facility to meet you immediately after.”
That’s definitely the longest sentence I’ve gotten out of him so far. We head down a short flight of stairs into the park, where several patches of green grass and multicolored flowers are spread out across a marble path that looks so spotless you could eat a meal off of it. I make a beeline for a bench under the shade of a tree, and Rebane follows, sitting a healthy distance away from me.
“What I’m trying to figure out,” I say slowly, feeling the beginnings of a headache building up already, “is whether someone arranged for you to save me, so I would trust you. Because it’s pretty goddamn convenient you were right there to break my neck when I got hit with that dart.”
Rebane is quiet for a few moments, expression as impassive as ever.
“If that is the case, it was arranged without my knowledge. Furthermore, my presence was not coincidental. I was shadowing you, as I correctly estimated a high probability of an assassination attempt occurring within your quarters.”
That wasn’t exactly the response I was expecting. Not that there was anything in particular I was expecting. My mind isn’t operating at full capacity right now. For a moment, I worry that I’m suffering partial effects of the Mindkiller, but if that were the case, there’s virtually no chance it wouldn’t have been detected by the resurrection systems. More likely, I’m just disoriented from having been brought back to life, and from seeing and hearing the world through literally fresh eyes and ears.
“That so?”
“Yes. You are my commanding officer. It is my duty to protect you. Particularly considering that other Nobles of your line die much more frequently than any other.”
Part of me is still trying to wrap my head around the fact that someone of his size was ‘shadowing’ me.
“You still haven’t said anything to convince me that this wasn’t a setup to get me to trust you.”
“If so, it would be an exceedingly poor one,” he comments. “You identified the possibility almost immediately.”
“Right, but that could be intentional. It’s so obvious that I discard the possibility, and start to trust you... then you finish the job when I’m least expecting it.”
“I am not capable of doing so. My line is that of Gunnar, the Resolute.”
Rebane offers no explanation, so I get it from the brainband instead. The name sounded familiar, but only once I get the information download does it click. Gunnar was the bodyguard of the first Emperor. He died over fifteen hundred times in the Emperor’s service, and Nobles of his line have done so tens of thousands more times since then. Not once in the entire history of his line has one of his Nobles betrayed the Emperor, despite attempts to blackmail them, threaten their parents, or their spouses, or their children, or otherwise gain leverage over them. It’s a convincing argument in Rebane’s favor- but it’s also convenient. Almost too convenient.
Then something else clicks. It’s far too convenient for an unfailingly loyal bodyguard to have been placed in my unit, particularly when I’m at risk from assassination attempts. But that doesn’t mean my enemies put him there. It could very well be an ally instead. Someone with a vested interest in keeping me alive, who could arrange for Sander to be assigned to the same unit as me. Who, I don’t yet know. But it’s the only explanation that makes sense.
“Okay. I believe you.”
“I am glad.”
He doesn’t question why, just accepts it. I could get used to having him around. In fact, I’m going to have to get used to it.
“If you’re gonna be my bodyguard, we might have to work on your conversation skills. But that can wait. You’re already trained, right?”
“Yes. I am fully certified, and prepared to serve as your security chief. Furthermore, my room is directly adjacent to yours, and I was informed prior to my arrival that my schedule would be identical to that of my unit commander, so that I could provide protection at all times.”
Just looking at him was enough for me to figure that out. I’m willing to bet that his gray skin isn’t just a cosmetic choice. He’s probably given himself every possible defensive enhancement that’s legal within the Imperium, and maybe some that aren’t.
“Good. I’m giving you full authority to requisition whatever equipment you need to do your job. Spend as much of the unit’s money as you need. It’s no good to me if I’m too dead to use it.”
Each unit gets a monthly stipend, plus whatever else we earn from winning various competitions against the other houses. The initial reserve we’re all provided with is fairly generous, but part of the job is to manage it carefully, mainly so the more administratively-minded Nobles have something to do. I’ll have to figure out which of the Gazelles will be handling that soon, especially if we’ll be starting at a deficit compared to the others. I doubt Sander is the type to overspend, though.
“Understood. Will you be needing my presence during the War Council?”
For a moment I wonder how he knows I’m planning on forming a War Council at all, before I remember that he was in the elevator alongside Grant and I when I mentioned it.
“Yeah. And I want the entire Hyperion Building wired up before we meet. Plus, we should look into how that dart-trap was installed in the first place. I’m sure whoever did it covered their tracks well, but it’s still worth figuring out how they did it, so we can make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
“Understood.”
“Also, don’t tell anybody about what happened yet. They’ll need to know, but not before we’ve made sure the building is secure. That includes Citadel staff, by the way.”
Reporting the truedeath attempt to the administration would be a mistake. At worst, it would alert the would-be assassins, and at best, they’d simply do nothing. After all, something like two dozen other Nobles in my line have been killed in similar circumstances, and they haven’t done a damn thing. We live or die on our own merits here.
“Affirmative. Would you like me to begin now?”
“Not yet,” I answer with a sigh, massaging my temple. “We still need to go to dinner.”
----------------------------------------
By the time we get to the Entrance Hall, dinner is already in full swing. The Citadel doesn’t have a single dedicated cafeteria- students are free to eat at any of the various restaurants throughout the city. But on the first day of a new semester, all of those restaurants prepare a platter for the students to sample together. It’s probably the only time save for the end-of-year feast that we’ll all be eating together.
My headache has mostly passed, thankfully, but I’m still not at peak performance quite yet. Each unit has their own table, and I find an empty seat in the middle of ours, while Sander takes one a short distance away. Just having him around makes me feel like I can relax, although I’m doing my best not to fully drop my guard just yet. The odds of him genuinely being a spy are miniscule- there have been dozens of other Nobles in his line before, and not one of them has ever betrayed their master. But that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s as competent as his Founder was. I can’t assume he’s capable of protecting me completely, even if I can be pretty confident that he wants to.
“Hey, boss,” someone says as I take a seat. It’s the guy with dreadlocks, who asked our sponsor about how to transfer out of the unit. He nods in Sander’s direction with a grin. “You two have a good time?”
I suppose that’s a reasonable assumption to make about what we were doing, considering neither of us has been seen for several hours. I just laugh, and spear a dumpling with my fork.
“Oh, yeah. He knocked me dead.”
At least for tonight, I don’t have to worry about my food being poisoned, since that would mean everybody else would have also been exposed. Just in case, though, I make sure to grab something off a dish that it looks like other people have eaten from. The platter positioned near where I’m sitting looks like Asian cuisine. Back on Earth, each one of the specific national cultures would probably have been its own restaurant, but now there are hundreds of planets worth of other regional cuisines, so they all get lumped in under ‘Asian.’ Eventually, it’ll just be thrown in along with hundreds of other styles as ‘Earth food.’
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Idly, I wonder what Sander did with my corpse. Probably had the janitorial staff come in and pick it up for recycling, if I had to guess.
“Don’t think I caught your name,” I say to dreadlocks. He raises an eyebrow at me.
“Don’t remember throwing it.”
“Funny,” I reply sardonically, picking up some duck off a tray and dropping it on my plate, along with a healthy heaping of the accompanying sauce. “Are you gonna be cute with me all year?”
He puts a hand to his chest, face the picture of mock-surprise. I think he even manages to blush.
“You think I’m cute? Why, boss, I don’t know what to say.” He looks over at Sander, who’s watching me implacably while he chews on something the way an industrial thresher might. “And whatever will your lover think?”
Despite myself, I laugh.
“First of all, he’s not my lover. And second, even if he was, I sincerely doubt he’d care. Doesn’t seem like the romantic type.”
Dreads chuckles, dipping a sushi roll in soy sauce.
“What about you, boss? Are you the romantic type?”
“I’d tell you to stick around and find out, but I usually like to at least know someone’s name before I make them an offer like that.”
“Well, when you put it like that...” He grins, and extends a fist across the table, which I bump. Easier than shaking hands over the fish platter. “You can call me Mars.”
“Your parents tell you that people would think you were arrogant for naming yourself after a god?”
“Oh, yeah. Yours?”
“You bet.”
We share a laugh, and I instantly like him even more. It seems to signal the end of the conversation for now, though, as he goes back to his food and I get to work on mine. As it turns out, coming back to life leaves you pretty hungry, since your new stomach is completely empty. Some of the others give me strange looks as I dig into the various offerings with gusto, but most of them just carry on with their own conversations.
Keeping my ears open, I hear snippets of several different discussions. Most of them are related to less than serious matters. Sports rivalries, celebrity gossip, that sort of thing. Not even Nobles are immune to banality, although I imagine if ordinary people knew that these were the conversations we had, it would break some of the illusion for them.
Having grown up fairly isolated, I suppose my conception of what ‘ordinary people’ think of Nobles may not be entirely accurate. My family lives in enough comfort that they can afford to not really have opinions on political matters. Even before I knew for sure I was a Noble, however, I followed the goings-on of the Imperial court closely. The impression I got was that most people have legitimately bought into the notion that the Nobility are uniquely qualified and capable, which is why they’re the ones in charge. My view has always been a little more cynical, although until today, I’d never actually met another Noble before. It’s evident that most of them are basically just normal people who happen to be more talented in a specific discipline than the average person. But there are a few who have the sort of presence that makes me understand how they got the term ‘Noble’ in the first place.
“Hey, Izzy!”
Sofie is calling me from a few seats down. I might have to speak with her about calling me that in front of the rest of the unit. Making them all address me as ‘Commander’ would be a little too formal for my tastes, but I don’t want things to get too casual. Some amount of discipline is going to be necessary if we’re to succeed. There’s a difference between a request from a friend, and a command from an officer. One, you can ignore. The other, you’ll follow, even if you’d really rather not.
“What’s up?”
“Wanna know what odds the prediction markets are giving us to be ranked higher than all the other houses by the end of the year?” she asks.
“Sure, hit me.”
“Eight hundred and eighty-eight to one!”
A wave of laughter goes down the table, and I let myself get caught up in it. Some are laughing fatalistically, or because everyone else is doing it. But I can see in the eyes of a few people, like Mars, that they’re laughing for the same reason I am.
“Sounds like easy money to me,” I reply loudly, after most of the laughter has died down. It elicits a handful of cheers, though none incredibly enthusiastic. Maybe I really should get Grant to write my speeches for me.
Our little uproar hasn’t attracted much attention from the other tables. We’re at the far end of the room, with the Oxen being the only unit close enough for me to get a good look at them. I spot Tellis, sitting at the right hand of his commander, Thomas Starling. He’s conversing animatedly with a serious-looking girl who has ink-black eyes and matching black veins extending outward from them. More evidence for my thesis about him being attracted to people with visible body modifications. Starling himself is eating quietly, seemingly ignored by the rest of his unit.
From what little I can see of the Komodo unit, they seem to be dining in relative silence. Perhaps the Grim Dragon’s demeanor has infected the rest of them already. Or maybe Hark just demanded that they maintain a professional bearing at all times. Having a nine year old disciplinarian in charge of me sounds like a nightmare, I must admit. When Tellis mentioned the fact that she was in our year, I had a moment of concern that I’d end up serving under her, rather than having my own unit. Even before I knew the latest Noble in that line was a child, I knew it would be misery to be one of the Grim Dragon’s subordinates. However unpleasant it is for them, I don’t doubt it’ll turn them into a formidable opponent. The Peregrines and Oxen are a concern, but the Komodos are the ones I’m really worried about.
“Bit of a serious look you’ve got there, boss.”
I look over at Mars, belatedly realizing I wasn’t controlling my expression. Stupid mistake, which I’ll blame on having recently come out of a pod of biomass. Certainly not that I was just distracted. That’s ridiculous.
“Just thinking about how best to kill everyone in here,” I fire back sarcastically.
“Yeah? Got any tips?”
“Cluster bomb or two would probably do the trick.”
Seemingly taken aback at the blunt answer, Mars laughs.
“Well, you’re not wrong about that.”
----------------------------------------
I leave a little bit before everyone else, mainly to get a chance to think about what I’m actually going to say to everyone in the meeting I promised we’d have after dinner. My plan was to spin off a copy or two after I’d finished unpacking everything, and have them help, but dying threw a bit of a wrench into that. I suppose I should be grateful that the wait time for a resurrection is so quick here. If I’d died back home, it would have been two weeks, minimum, before I was back in a body.
Unsurprisingly, Sander follows me, without being asked. It didn’t seem like he was talking with anyone, but I do feel a little bad about pulling him away from his meal. He doesn’t question why I left, just falls into step a pace behind me. In the corner of my eye, I can see him scanning the environment, never seeming to relax for a second. When I meet whoever arranged for him to be in my unit, I intend to thank them profusely.
“How confident are you that there aren’t any more traps in my rooms?”
He’s silent for a moment, pondering the question.
“Eighty percent. The one you triggered was fairly unsophisticated, working off of a simple motion sensor. I suspect it was placed there around the same time your bags were, as there’s little chance someone else wouldn’t have triggered it if it was left there earlier. If there were any other such devices in the apartment, I would have most likely triggered them during my initial investigation after I killed you.”
There’s something slightly disconcerting about the way he says that, as if he wasn’t risking truedeath for the sake of someone who’d barely said two sentences to him. Sander doesn’t even pause, though.
“It’s possible that there are more sophisticated systems, which I wouldn’t have triggered. For instance, a biometric-sensor trap that would only activate in response to your presence, or a manually-operated device that the controller could trigger at any time. However, those are both unlikely. The biometric device would need a sample to calibrate, and due to the fact that you lived on an isolated planet with minimal outside contact, that would have been difficult to obtain. Unless you think a member of your family would have provided it.”
“Probably not.”
“I thought as much. A manually-operated device would require an operator, and as no unauthorized personnel would be able to enter the Citadel without being detected by the security network, it would have to be a member of the administration or support staff. It’s not inconceivable that one could have been bribed, and indeed one most likely was paid off to place the motion-sensor trap in the first place. But paying someone to leave a seemingly innocuous ‘surprise’ in a student’s room, and paying them to spend hours waiting with their finger on the trigger of a hidden weapon, are very different things. Furthermore, the signal would be fairly trivial for me to trace, with the right equipment.”
Before he’s halfway through his methodical breakdown of the situation, I already want to marry him. He’s just too damn useful. It’s almost a shame I’ll have to give him up to the Emperor after we graduate.
“How soon can you get your hands on that equipment?”
“I’ve already requisitioned it. By the time we arrive, my matter-fabricator should have finished producing it.”
Okay, I’m absolutely marrying him. If he’s as asexual as he acts, he won’t have any problem doing it for convenience, and if not, I’ll just have to seduce him.
“Great. We’ll do that first. Be nice to know I can sleep tonight without having to worry about not waking up. Then I need to get to work on logistics stuff for the unit. Hopefully I can get a rough outline done before everyone else is finished eating.”
Besides a general suggestion that we all attend our classes, the administration doesn’t really have any rules about how we students spend our time. I, however, absolutely intend to set some parameters. Nothing too harsh, as I don’t want the unit to resent me, but I won’t allow them to slack off either. We’ve got the odds against us, literally and figuratively. The only way out is going to be turning my Gazelles into a force to be reckoned with.
Luckily, I won’t have to plan it all out alone. Sander probably isn’t cut out for that kind of thing, but he isn’t the only person I can call on. At the end of the day, I’ll always be my own greatest ally, and thanks to Imperium technology, that can be true in the most literal sense of the word.
Translating the human mind into code was cracked a few hundred years ago, and it led to some of the worst atrocities in human history. Endless enslaved copies of the human mind, put to work on an accelerated time-scale, mining logic diamonds for thousands of subjective years, without a moment’s rest. Worse, people would modify those minds, which resulted in the creation of an entity called the Beast. A body honed to physical perfection was no longer anything special, but a mind designed specifically for warfare was revolutionary. It was the ultimate soldier. And with the ability to make endless iterations of his mind, he could be downloaded into an endless number of bodies.
The Imperium put an end to all that. Erased every single copy of the Beast’s personality matrix, and put the sim-slaves out of their misery. But they didn’t outlaw the technology entirely- to do so would merely drive its use underground, where it would be more difficult to control. Instead, they instituted two laws. First, that no mind could ever occupy more than one body at a time. Any attempt to do otherwise would result in an instant truedeath sentence. Second, that no person could have more than ten active copies of their own mind at a time, and only for twenty-four standard hours until they were automatically merged. So now, whenever you need some extra brainpower, you can simply spin off ten more of yourself, and when that twenty-four hour clock is up, all of their experiences are downloaded into your memory.
Alone, I probably wouldn’t be able to get more than a vague sketch of a plan done in the short time we have before the others finish dinner and all head back to the dorm. But with a few copies of myself to bounce ideas off of, I should be able to get something presentable together.
Before long, we’re back at the Hyperion Building. It’s strange- I distinctly remember going in and never coming out. Some part of me is apprehensive of going back in, even knowing that I’m not going to die the same way twice. That doesn’t provide much comfort, but having Sander by my side does. He takes the lead as we head through the lobby and into the elevator.
The instant the doors close, I regret not taking the stairs. It would have been six flights, but locking myself in a metal coffin suddenly feels like a mistake. I know that it’s irrational, since we rode an elevator together already, and nothing bad happened, but I can’t keep myself from tensing my muscles for the entire ride, only relaxing a fraction once it stops at the sixth floor and the doors open again.
Eyes flickering up and down the hallway as he walks out, Sander leads me to his rooms, which- as he said earlier -are right next to mine. I wonder if I’d have to pay a fine or something if I installed a door directly between his apartment and mine, to save time if he ever has to charge in and save me. Hopefully it won’t come to that- I certainly don’t intend to sleep a single night without a gun within arm’s reach -but it would be reassuring to know he’s there nonetheless.
Much as I suspected, the decor of Sander’s room is identical to mine. However, his bags, which are slightly more spread-out than mine, since I never got the chance to move them, are rather different. Most of them are black canvas, and some look as if they conceal rather large firearms inside. The one that catches my eye, however, looks to be made from a different material, and lies mostly out of sight in another room. I walk over to take a look.
“Is… is my body in there?”
“Yes.”
“Oh. I, uh, I figured you’d disposed of it already.”
“It seemed prudent to preserve it until you could decide what to do. I removed your Gazelle pin and left it on your living room table.”
“Thanks.” I pause for a minute, staring at the lumpy shape under the black plastic. “Did you bring body bags from home?”
“Yes.”
“…why?”
Sander doesn’t look up from what he’s doing, which happens to be assembling some bit of machinery that came out of his matter-fabricator. Presumably the devices he needs to make sure my room doesn’t have any more fun surprises waiting for me.
“It seemed likely that I would require them.”
“Well, I guess you weren’t wrong.”
Averting my eyes from the body bag, I take a seat nearby, and watch him work. It’s remarkably efficient, although I suppose some credit is due to the designers for making it easy to put together after you’ve fabricated the components. He probably wouldn’t appreciate an offer of help, considering he knows how to do what he’s doing, and I don’t. Brainband memory transfer typically doesn’t allow for the sharing of complex skills like that. Too many other associations involved, like muscle memory, that can’t be swapped without getting some important wires seriously crossed.
We sit like that, in silence, for a few minutes. If my presence makes Sander uncomfortable, he doesn’t let on. Then he twists the two halves of the metal sphere together, locking them in place, and examines it critically, before giving me a nod.
“It’s ready.”
“Great. Let’s go.”
Once more, he leads the way, this time back to my apartment. Rather than enter, however, he gestures for me to wait, and pushes open the door, before tossing the sphere inside and pressing himself against the wall. From my position, I can’t see exactly what’s going on, but there’s a pulse of light from inside the room that seems to wash over everything within range. Sander remains silent for a few moments, until we hear a soft chime, and I let out a breath I hadn’t meant to be holding.
My bodyguard enters the room, collecting the orb from off the ground, and examines it once more. A light on one side is glowing green, which I take to be a good sign.
“We’re clear,” Sander informs me, laconic as ever. “I’ll set up some more permanent security measures before you go to sleep, but you should be clear to get started.”
Giving him an appreciative nod, I follow him into the room. Nothing much is different from the last time I was in here, other than a hunk of crushed metal sitting on the floor, which I presume to have been the device that shot me with the Mindkiller dart. As promised my Gazelle pin is sitting on the table in my living room, and I reattach it to my lapel. My bags are still sitting in the middle of the room, untouched, but unpacking can wait.
Moving with some urgency, I seek out the office. It’s not especially large, big enough to fit a desk with a multi-monitor computer setup and not much else, but that’s not what I’m concerned with right now. I locate the sim-storage unit, a heavily reinforced metal cube with some incredibly complex machinery inside, and reach out towards it through the brainband. It accepts my access codes and begins the synchronization process, which completes at a remarkable speed. Another indication that the tech available here on Akademos is simply better than what we had back home, where synching up could have taken up to an hour.
As soon as I’m fully synched, I give the order to spin up four new members of my copyclan. They appear almost instantly, represented by a set of identical holograms. Each one looks precisely like me, save for the slight bit of intentionally-included visual distortion to remind me that they’re the sims, and I’m not.
“Okay, girls,” one of them says with a grin. “Let’s get to work.”
----------------------------------------
It takes a while for the rest of the Gazelles to get back from dinner. I send out a brainband notification reminding them all that we’ve got a meeting, but even then, I wait in the lobby for about a half-hour before most of the group trickles in.
That doesn’t mean it’s a total waste of time, though. After I finished outlining a basic training schedule for the unit, I spun off six more of myself, and set them all to work studying the profiles of each member of the unit, which I now have access to as commander. Once they’re all done, I’ll merge with each of them, and instantly absorb the knowledge of each of my subordinates, as well as the Founder whose line they’re a part of. I’m still going to have to get to know them personally, but a bit of background knowledge should go a long way in figuring out how best to utilize their skills.
Katrina is the first to arrive back, taking a seat far enough away from me to discourage any conversation. I have half a mind to approach her regardless, but before I can get a chance, others start to show up. A few of them are alone, others in pairs or groups of three, including Nikolai and Sofie, who both wave to me as they enter, and take seats fairly close, while still giving me some space. Not shockingly, Bret returns alone, but takes the opportunity to sit down next to a pair who are clearly having a private conversation, causing both of them to give him a look of annoyance and shift further down the couch away from him.
Once everybody is present, I raise a hand, index finger pointed skyward, and wait for them all to fall silent. Most do so instantly, if they weren’t already, but a few keep talking, until they realize that they’re the only ones doing so and awkwardly trail off.
“Okay. You should all have your schedules right now, and I assume most of you have taken a look at them. For those of you that haven’t, let me explain. Akademos has a eight-day week. We only have classes for the first four of those days.”
That may not seem like much, but each class is a four-hour seminar. Based on my understanding, they tend to consist of about an hour of theory, followed by the rest of the class session spent putting that theory into practice. For a combat-oriented class, that would involve sparring. For tactics, going through battle simulations. Since information can be directly downloaded via the brainband, however, the concept of ‘homework’ and ‘studying’ aren’t really relevant, so once we leave the classroom, our work is more or less done for the day. Any additional concepts requiring review can just be accessed directly from our own memories,
“However, that doesn’t mean you’re free to do whatever you want for the rest of the week. On the first day after classes are done, we’re going to run a serious, multi-hour exercise. The precise nature will vary each time. I will be designing these exercises, potentially with input from some of you, if you’ve got something useful to add. The following day will be practice, training exercises, and review, led by officers of my choosing. If you think you’re suited to the task, feel free to approach me over the next few days.”
Part of what my copyclan is doing right now is looking for suitable candidates among the unit. I have a feeling I already know who they’re going to select, though. Those officers will most likely be among my War Council as well.
“After that, we’ll run the same exercise again. The first attempt will be difficult, and may well end in failure. With any luck, the second attempt will go differently. Of course, that all depends on you all, and how hard you’re willing to work. After that, the last day of the week is for you all to do with as you wish. Except, that is, for dinner, where we’ll all be meeting up to have a group meal. I haven’t decided exactly where yet, but if you discover a particularly good place, let me know and I’ll try it out myself.”
Bret raises a hand, but doesn’t wait before speaking up.
“So, are you saying you want us working eight days out of every week? And you’re gonna make us do an exercise you expect us to fail, right after four straight days of classes?”
I decide to channel Sander’s stoicism in my reply.
“Yes.”
“Uh, about that...”
It’s hard to tell exactly what sort of response he was expecting from that line. Maybe uproarious laughter, which certainly isn’t what he receives. Instead, he gets a series of blank stares as he looks around the group, hoping for some sympathy.
“In case you were unaware, a Noble doesn’t get any days off when they’re working within the Imperial bureaucracy. And they certainly don’t get to pick and choose when an attack comes. If you’re serious about all of this, you’d better get used to my schedule fast, because it’s not always going to be this generous. And if not, you may as well off yourself now, and give the next person in your line a shot.”
Chastened, Bret looks down at his feet, and I scan the rest of the Gazelles. Some of them are nodding, others grim and expressionless. Nobody seems to be showing Bret much sympathy. He strikes me as the type who was treated exceedingly gently by his parents. That can be a good thing for some, but it makes for a poor Noble, and I don’t have much interest in slowly easing him into maturity. Either he’ll grow up fast, or he’ll flame out. Either way, I don’t see him remaining here in his current state for very long.
“Any further questions?”
Nobody says a word.
“Good. Classes start tomorrow at one. I’m sure I’ll be seeing some of you in them. If we haven’t already spoken, I’ll be making my way to you in time. If you get a chance, come talk with me, even if you’re not interested in being an officer. The sooner I know what you’re good for, the less chance there is I’ll be using you as cannon fodder.”