“Carol!”
Carol’s reply came as an exhausted wheeze, barely audible if Gwen hadn’t been augmenting her hearing with something she’d learned from the Internets.
“Yeah, Gwen?”
“Who told you guys to stop?”
“C’mon, Gwen. We’re beat.”
“That’s why you’re going to get up and do it again. I can’t believe Mary let you guys get this out of shape.”
Like you have any room to talk.
“Out of shape? We’ve been going at this for almost half an hour!”
“And until you can finish with enough wind left to walk around and talk, you’re not in shape to do the routines I’m working on.”
“What the hell do you think we’re going to be doing, going into combat?”
How did she guess?
“This is tougher than combat. You don’t get to swing back.”
“Yeah. Can we swap out with the group outside?”
“No.”
“How do you know they’re still working?”
Gwen glanced at her laptop. The telltales for the motion sensors in the second squad’s gear still moved around the grounds. Occasionally one would stop with the flash that indicated that the wearer had fallen over, but thus far none of them had failed to get back up. The condition monitors were mostly yellow and green, unlike the indoor squad, who were mostly red, gradually shifting back to yellow.
“Because I know everything. Now, if you still want to be on the team, get back up and do it again.”
“Y’know, I never thought video games could be this exhausting.”
“You were playing the wrong video games.”
Carol pushed herself to her feet and staggered back over to the DDR setups Gwen and Mr. Roberts had put together. Before Carol started, she turned to speak to Gwen, but she was already heading toward the doors. Her shoulders slumped, but she got back onto the reinforced game pad and started moving to the music.
Gwen saw it all. The Master had honed her computing skills until her machine was almost an extension of herself. With that, she’d begun her search of the Internets for ways to gather more information. Most of it didn’t apply to the Internets itself, but some did. Most of it didn’t work in her home local, but some did. Enough worked that by now, nothing went on within school grounds without her knowing about it.
Hubris, much?
There remained only two subjects on which her information was inadequate. The first was the forces attacking the school. The only information she’d been able to gather was that they faced a being of deific power. While she still didn’t believe in deities, she was willing to accept that a being able to mold reality to its will was a close approximation.
Sophistry and heresy in one thought. Nice.
She ignored the nattering voice in her head as she rolled into the field where the rest of the girls practiced. That voice was itself the other subject she couldn’t get complete information on. There was nothing physically wrong with her brain. The one divination she’d attempted hinted at something, but it was nothing concrete.
Of course it wasn’t. Part of the curse specifically prevents you from accepting that you and yours are cursed.
Of course, the voice had gotten worse lately. She wasn’t sure why. Her latest theory was that she had some kind of allergy to non-local energy sources, and it was causing auditory hallucinations. They would be getting worse as she shunted power to herself to enhance her senses and temporarily kill the pain of her tortured nerves.
I suppose I should be used to it by now. The only times I actually accepted my curse were the lives when I wound up locked away for being crazy.
“Shut up. I have work to do.”
“That’s not exactly a polite way to get someone off the phone.”
Gwen reached up and tapped the earbud that connected her to the rest of the security team. In a pinch, it connected to her laptop for phone calls. She’d made sure to call everyone she spoke with regularly at least once with it. If Bluetooth earbuds made sane people look crazy, they were also good cover for legitimately crazy people. Doing her best to look contrite, she looked up to where Coach Roberts was watching her from the bleachers.
“Sorry, Coach. Things are getting to me today.”
“Did you take your pain meds?”
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
“Not yet.”
Not ever, anymore.
“You really need to work on when you take those. Maybe you could get a lower dosage, something that will help you stay civil without putting you under?”
Gwen paused, thinking about the last time she’d used any drugs at all. The night of the dance, she’d killed the pain the way she was doing now, without drugs. Killing the pain without chemicals exhausted her, and that night she’d been far too fatigued to do anything. The sight of Artemis swooning for someone else had driven her to use her painkillers. It was pain, after all, even if it wasn’t what they were made for.
Pain is pain, and more of it is what we deserve and crave.
With a shake of her head, Gwen pulled herself out of the past. No use dwelling on it. It was time to prepare for the future. When it got here, there would be no time to prepare, of that she was certain.
“I never thought video games could work for training, but the girls seem to be coming along nicely.”
Grateful for the change of subject, Gwen shot a lopsided grin at the coach. It was ironic, she got to spend more time with him than any girl in the school, and she was the only one who didn’t think of it as one of the perks of her position. Hadn’t, rather. While she wasn’t drooling over his body the way the rest of the girls were, her lack of interest let her talk to him. Behind the movie-star looks were a sharp mind and a good sense of humor.
“I thought you’d have worked with VR gear before?”
Coach Roberts shrugged. “Nah. I worked with a few guys who did, but I’ve never used computers for anything but games and paperwork.”
“OK. Not a Marine, then. What was the 101st Airborne like?”
“You’re way too smart for your own good.”
And how.
Gwen smirked at the coach. “That’s not a denial.”
“I try not to tell bald faced lies. I’ve been told I’m not good at it.”
“Do you really think anyone else here is paying attention to what you’re saying?”
“Hey! Bel listens to me!”
“Well, yeah. He’s male and straight.”
“You listen to me.”
“And I’m female, which means?”
“Huh. Really?”
Gwen nodded. “Yeah. Please don’t announce it over the loudspeaker or anything, but yeah.”
“You’re not using the cams for personal reasons, are you?”
“Hey! I’m gay, not a perv!”
Oxymoronic, but true nonetheless.
“Does Coach Stewart know?”
Gwen thought about it for a second. “I think so. I’ll tell him if you think I should.”
“Yeah. I could tell him, but then it’ll look like I found out and you tried to keep it hid. Don’t apologize, just tell him I told you it was something he should know.”
“For security reasons?”
“Liability.”
“Oh. I hate lawyers.”
“Yeah, well. Straighten it up, here come the girls.”
The second half of the team rounded the last turn of the run Gwen had them on. As she watched, the double line of girls leapt, tucked, rolled, and landed running two at a time. The synchronization of each pair was near perfect. The feat appeared even more spectacular to an unknowing visitor by the bandanna each girl had tied over her eyes.
Gwen checked her monitors as the girls approached. The VR gear beneath the bandannas currently showed them the unmodified terrain; the hoop they’d all leapt through was the last obstacle on this lap. She looked up at the coach, he put two fingers in the air with a questioning look. Without speaking, she shook her head and held up one finger. He nodded, and she returned to setting up the virtual obstacles for the last lap of the course.
Coach Roberts called out in a parade ground shout that easily carried to all the girls. “OK, Executives, looking good so far! One more lap and it’s time to go in!”
The groans the team replied with were more for show than anything. Gwen still punched up a few extra obstacles for them anyhow. When she needed them to follow the bouncing ball without thinking, they would be ready, or they’d die. Simple solution set, and she knew which option she wanted to happen. The girls took off around the long cross-country track again, good natured complaints echoing faintly back to the bleachers.
“Why only one more?”
“This is agility and coordination training, Coach. The endurance training is done inside. Out here, working tired is more likely to get them an injury. In there, they’ll just fall over.”
“Makes sense, and even after a three K jog, they seem ready for another, so I guess the endurance training is working. You’re going to put me out of a job, you know.”
“As if. I can’t shoot for beans.”
Roberts shook his head. “You’re coming along. You’re never going to be able to stack up and do entry properly, but you can already put a round where you want it if you’re given a few moments to aim.”
“How likely is someone to give me a few moments to aim?”
“Play up the wheelchair until they turn their back.”
Play the cripple and stab them in the back. Perfect for us!
“Yeah. No. Mind if I ask you a question that’s always bugged me?”
“Shoot.”
“Why are the teams here called the Executives?
“Really? You don’t know?”
“It’s not recorded anywhere.”
“I guess it might not be. Bel told me how it came about, although I’m not sure where he heard it. Short version, when they were putting together the schools, they were thinking about ‘Presidents’, but too many of the girls are from countries where that’s not the same position it is here in the States. Some of the staff liked ‘Premiers’, others thought it was too Hollywood. Somebody mentioned ‘Prime Ministers’, but that was too cumbersome. ‘Ministers’ and ‘Secretaries’ were both nixxed for unfortunate connotations. By the time they got back to ‘Presidents’ Mentor had already snapped that one up. So they compromised with ‘Executives’.”
Gwen frowned. “Hadn’t any of them heard of naming sports teams after animals, or funny stereotypes?”
“You don’t think executives have funny stereotypes?”
“Touché.”
“It looks like you’ve got everything well in hand. I’ll let you get back to training. Let me know if you need anything.”
“If you notice any cute girls who aren’t staring at you, clue me in, ok?”
Mr. Roberts walked away laughing. Gwen wished for the millionth time she could confide in someone.
No one would believe you.
“Lane would.”
Lane has no choice, and is part of what you wish to confide in any case.
“Look, just shut up and let me do my job, ok?”
That’s what I told myself when I cursed us all. I was just doing my duty.
Gwen forced herself to ignore the voice and checked her telltales once more. The girls running the outside course all remained in good shape, and the ones inside neared collapse. By the time the outside girls were done, it would be time to call it for the day. Setting her electronic minions to alert her if any of the girls faltered for more than a moment, she focused on the latest conundrum the Master had given her.
While she worked, she monitored the searches she had running near continuously on the Internets. She’d given up looking for information on what was happening here in her own world. Anything local was just that, local. Instead, she’d begun researching how she could use her new knowledge for something other than painkilling and sense enhancement.
And now we study sorcery. The one thing I’d managed to avoid, even if I have been accused of it time and time again.
Gwen opened her mouth to reply, and every alarm on campus went off at once.