Chapter 16

  Beginning of the First Act (V)

  Alaric’s office sat in stark defiance of the Denver Institute’s hyper-modern aesthetic. While the rest of the campus was dominated by digital displays, computers, sterile glass walls, and state-of-the-art technologies, his little sanctuary felt like it had been carved out of a different century.

  Heavy, floor-to-ceiling mahogany bookshelves lined the walls—chock-full of thick volumes and journals from various authors. The only light came from a brass desk lamp with a green glass shade, casting a warm glow over the center of a massive desk.

  Alaric sat with his back straight, meticulously sifting through physical stacks of his own lecture notes and syllabi. Reading glasses were perched low on his nose, his eyes darting across the pages. He vastly preferred the tactile weight of paper over the sterile glow of tablets and computers.

  A soft, rhythmic knock broke through his concentrated shuffling of paper. Alaric didn't look up immediately, taking a second to finish his current paragraph.

  "It’s open."

  The heavy door to his office cracked open, and Elias Harrow emerged. "Hey, Alan. You got a sec?"

  "Certainly," Alaric answered, finally sitting back and pulling his reading glasses off. He folded them neatly and set them on the desk. "Come in.”

  Elias stepped fully inside, letting the door click shut behind him. He carried himself with that same breezy, confident swagger that made him such an effective recruiter. "I wanted to show you something from one of the breakout sessions today. I had a video sent my way from Guzman's combat orientation."

  He strode up to the desk, tapping the screen of an iPad in his hand before turning it around and sliding it toward Alaric.

  "A few star pupils—Malika St. Claire and Xankoris—ended up joining the same group this morning," Elias said, leaning his hands on the edge of the desk.

  "Oh?" Alaric murmured, his interest genuinely piqued as he picked up the tablet. He knew they would join the same group; thanks to Jesse’s visions over the past few months, they knew it was guaranteed.

  "Yeah, and it was an absolute shitshow." Elias chuckled, shaking his head.

  Alaric furrowed his brows, then hit play on the video clip. The footage was taken from a high-angle security feed looking down at one of the glowing blue circles in the gymnasium. Inside the circle were five very distinct figures: Malika, Xankoris, Yvette, Paul, and Bao Lin.

  While others in different circles were participating in simple formation drills, it looked like these five were in the midst of some sort of argument.

  On the screen, Malika was gesturing sharply, clearly trying to establish a tactical formation and dictate positions. Xankoris stood perfectly still, entirely ignoring her directions as he stared off toward the perimeter, his body language radiating a cold refusal to participate. The audio was muffled, but Alaric watched Malika throw her hands up in frustration, stepping into Xankoris’s personal space to bark a reprimand.

  It was a bizarre scene unfolding before him.

  In the midst of Malika’s frustrated antics, Paul stepped between her and Xankoris, his massive hands raised in a placating gesture, clearly trying to mediate. But Malika, her stress evidently boiling over, snapped at the giant. That was the trigger. Yvette—brows tightly furrowed—instantly inserted herself into the fray, stepping aggressively in front of Paul and shoving Malika hard in the shoulder.

  The video ended with the group looking completely fractured: Malika glaring at all of her group members, Yvette bristling, Paul looking like a deer in headlights, Bao Lin staring at the floor, and Xankoris entirely indifferent to the chaos around him.

  Alaric set the tablet face-down on the desk. He let out a long, measured exhale. "Huh."

  ‘This is not ideal.’

  "Yeah." Elias laughed, pulling out one of the leather chairs across from the desk and collapsing into it. "I honestly thought a team with that much raw talent would show a little more… promise? Seems like our top prospects have a bit of an ego issue."

  Alaric looked at Elias, allowing a polite, mirrored chuckle to surface. "Perhaps."

  ‘Ego,’ Alaric thought to himself. ‘No, not ego, it’s fear. Malika is terrified of failing, and Xankoris has an aversion to trusting.’

  From an academic standpoint, the team was clearly a disaster. From a narrative standpoint, though, it was the perfect raw material for a story beginning its first act—even if they were currently straying from the source material. The group fracturing right off the bat, frankly, was an annoying equation that they needed to solve. If Alaric could frame this correctly—if he could feed Jesse the right variables—he could set the boy up to make his first real, deliberate ‘edits’ to the narrative in order to correct the course. Guide his hand without forcing it. After all, friction creates heat, and heat is the perfect conduit for forging bonds.

  "Did you observe the entire class?" Alaric asked, steepling his fingers.

  "No, just that clip," Elias said, waving a hand dismissively. "I know one of the ward-techs operating the gym today. He’s seen me shadowing Xankoris a few times, so he clipped the feed and sent it over."

  Alaric nodded slowly, leaning back in his chair so the shadows hid the calculating look in his eyes. "I see. Well, I was going to ask if you had any professional thoughts on what went wrong down there. As it happens, I have that entire group in my introductory theory class tomorrow."

  "Oh, really? All of them?" Elias looked mildly surprised, then shrugged. "Honestly, Alan? I’d just chalk it up to them being teenagers. It’s the nerves. You put a bunch of highly skilled, lethal, traumatized kids in a pressure cooker and tell them to play nice... someone's bound to pop."

  Alaric chuckled softly. It was a tragically mundane assessment, but entirely fair given what Elias actually knew. "Yes, well… I suppose that was quite evident based on that display."

  Elias nodded, his amusement fading into something a bit more earnest. He shifted in his seat. "Speaking of kids… how’s your son doing? Have you talked with him at all today?"

  "I did. We drove in together this morning," Alaric answered smoothly, his tone shifting effortlessly. "He is doing well, I think. He’s usually fairly reserved in new environments, but he has a good head on his shoulders. He just needs the right opportunities to prove himself."

  "Okay, that’s good," Elias answered, then shifted slightly. "Drove in this morning… Is he not staying on campus in the dorms?"

  Alaric shook his head. "No. He has an apartment downtown. He’s been living alone for a while now, actually, since he finished high school. He’s been needing some more… personal space as of late."

  Elias made a strange, slightly pinched expression. "Oh. Uh, well—sorry for prying—but is… everything okay with him?" he asked, his voice dropping into a softer, more careful register.

  Alaric looked up with a reassuring laugh. "Of course, why wouldn’t it be? He’s a grown man now, after all. At twenty-one years old, the boy had been chewing my ear off trying to get his own place."

  "Gotcha," Elias said with an approving nod, the tension instantly evaporating from his posture. "Yeah, that makes sense… God, kids grow up way too fast these days." He rubbed his hands along his jeans.

  A comfortable silence spread over them for a brief moment. Elias leaned back in his leather chair, his gaze drifting toward the tablet resting face-down on the polished mahogany. He let out a quiet, somewhat heavy sigh, the breezy recruiter persona slipping just enough to reveal some semblance of exhaustion that was underneath. He rubbed the back of his neck, his eyes tracing the grain of the desk.

  "Hard to believe this is it," Elias murmured, his voice stripped of its usual theatrical projection. "Day one, year one. The Pioneers."

  Alaric watched him carefully. "They’ll be graduating before we know it."

  "Yeah… that’s right," Elias answered, a bitter edge catching in his throat. He gestured vaguely toward the tablet. "You know, when Justice pulled me from the New York Institute to help get this place up and going, she sold me on a promise.”

  “And what promise would that be?” Alaric asked, leaning forward into the warm pool of lamplight.

  Elias got a distant, haunted look in his eye. “She said Denver wasn't going to be a factory. Because back in New York... man, it was a machine. Blackwater & Glass has such a grip on that institute, it’s insane. You scout a kid with a real strong spark in ‘em, you get them signed up, and they show up all excited and giddy. So thrilled to finally be someone, you know? And then, the second they walk across that graduation stage... you feed them straight to the Guilds."

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Elias let out a hollow, humorless chuckle. "Sometimes I sit here and wonder what the fuck I’m actually doing. Kestrel, Frontier, Aegis... they’re just gonna snap these kids up, slap corporate badges on their chests, and drop them straight into the dead zones.” He paused, taking a deep, ragged breath as he stared down at his own hands. "You know how many kids I scouted out East who didn't survive their first year in the field?”

  Alaric furrowed his brows, a rare crack in his stoicism. “You kept track of them?”

  “Oh, I used to know them all, Alan,” Elias answered, shifting uncomfortably in his seat, the heavy leather creaking under the sudden, restless tension in his frame. “I knew their hobbies, their favorite bands, the names of their little sisters. I sat in their cramped living rooms and drank their parents' cheap coffee. I even got invited to a few birthday parties, high school graduations, weddings… God, I made genuine connections with those kids as best I could. I made them trust me. It’s exactly why I was so good at my job. That empathy—that ability to make them feel seen—is what made me successful. I sold them a future they desperately wanted to believe in.”

  His expression darkened, the easy, polished charisma melting away completely to leave behind something hollow and deeply bruised. He swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing as he fought to stifle something heavy and suffocating that threatened to spill out, unfiltered.

  “I still remember that first…” He choked up for a fraction of a second, his eyes fixing blindly on the edge of the mahogany desk. He cleared his throat roughly, forcing the words out. “Funeral. Some poor single mother whose kid was—God, Alan, he was special. He was so bright. She called me the night she got the casualty report, barely holding it together on the phone, begging me to explain what happened out there in the dead zones. I showed up to the service in my tailored corporate suit, not even… not even sure what the fuck I was even supposed to do there.”

  He let out a dry, awkward chuckle—a brittle, instinctual defense mechanism that fractured almost immediately. “I mean, she was standing there, completely shattered, grieving the loss of her only family in the world. And she looked at me like I was the one who was supposed to have the answers.” He shook his head slowly, his gaze dropping heavily to his lap as his hands clasped together, his knuckles turning white. “I wanted to quit right then and there. Rip off my ID badge and walk straight into traffic. I can’t even begin to articulate the sheer, suffocating amount of guilt I felt when I saw her standing over that closed casket."

  Alaric’s expression tightened, the mask slipping as his voice dropped into a low, steady cadence. “Elias, you were not responsible for—”

  “But I was!” Elias barked, cutting him off. “I took him from her!”

  The sudden, violent volume rang sharply. Elias instantly grimaced, his shoulders collapsing inward as the sudden spike of adrenaline and fight drained completely out of him. He rubbed his face aggressively with both hands, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes as if trying to physically scrub away the memories burned into the back of his eyelids.

  “I’m sorry, I just… I tried so hard,” Elias whispered, his voice cracking. “I followed every rule and protocol. But… holy fuck, Alan. At the end of the day, they’re just kids and—and people like me..." He made an ugly expression as he shook his head. "...we just keep the doors to the slaughterhouse open.”

  Alaric remained perfectly still, letting the heavy, somber confession fill the room.

  Elias exhaled a shaky breath and scoffed. "You know, I spent weeks tracking Xankoris down. One kid. Took me weeks of sifting through LunarChain testimonies and Coast Guard reports, all just to try and pinpoint where he was. When I found him and he agreed to come with me, on the flight back we actually talked quite a bit. He shared a little bit about himself, and I shared about me and what I do. He's the first kid in years I've let myself actually give a damn about.” A half-smile ghosted across his face at the thought of their raw potential, but it faded almost instantly. The quiet, crushing weight of what that potential actually meant pulled the corners of his mouth back down.

  “Sometimes I actually catch myself hoping they’ll just fail. Like, just completely wash out on day one, pack their bags, go home and… fuck, just be a farmer or some shit. Do something simple and safe.” He let out a self-deprecating laugh, shaking his head at his own stupid optimism. Because they both knew the truth. Escaping the Institute didn't mean retreating to safety.

  “But washing out doesn't save anyone in the end either.” He tucked his lower lip in as he sighed, the bitterness returning. He looked up, his expression hardening with a desperate resolve. “If they have to be here, it’d be a damn shame to watch them tear each other apart just because they can't figure out how to share a fucking sandbox. If this place is truly supposed to be better, then we cannot let them fall apart on us.”

  "They are simply rough around the edges. Most young students like them are," Alaric agreed, breaking the heavy silence softly. His voice carried a gentle, measured tone. "The transition from individual survival to collective reliance is hardly ever smooth, especially for children who have only ever learned to trust themselves."

  "Yeah, well, out there in the zones, 'rough around the edges' gets you killed," Elias muttered. He blinked rapidly, as if suddenly waking up and realizing exactly how much of his own buried anxiety he had just spilled onto his friend’s desk. He rubbed his face vigorously, forcing a dry, familiar chuckle to lighten the morbid atmosphere. He slapped his hands firmly on his knees and took a deep, centering breath.

  "Anyway. I’m… I’m sorry for barking at you like that. You didn't let me in here to vent. Just please, don’t let them murder each other in your Theory class tomorrow, yeah? I can only imagine the kind of administrative paperwork that would require filling out… Lori would not be very happy with you."

  "I will keep a very close eye on them, Elias," Alaric replied with a chuckle, casually waving off the apology. He was built out of tougher stuff. He let the detached professor persona drop just a fraction, offering a genuine, anchoring reassurance. "I hope you know this, but I also value their talent, just as much as you do. I will do my part to ensure they do not slip through the cracks."

  Elias held his gaze for a long second, the quiet, solemn promise landing exactly where it needed to in his weary chest. The tight, defensive line of his shoulders finally relaxed. He grabbed his tablet and tapped it twice against the wood, his usual deflective grin sliding seamlessly back into place.

  "I appreciate that, Alan," Elias said, pushing himself heavily up from the chair. "I'll let you get back to it. Have a good afternoon."

  "You as well, Elias."

  Once the heavy oak door clicked shut, the pressurized silence returned, leaving Alaric alone once again. He reached across the desk and picked up his reading glasses, unfolding the arms slowly. He couldn’t help but pause as a peculiar sense of calm came over him. The first bit of deviance and friction was threatening to take place; the moment of action was already calling out to them. The Editor would be needed already, yet he could not.

  “Huh,” he voiced to himself, a small, knowing smile touching his lips as he slid the glasses back onto his nose.

  ‘I think he can handle this much.’

  Alaric huffed and pulled a fresh stack of syllabi toward him in the warm, green-tinted light and went back to work.

  ~~~~

  I made my way across the manicured grounds from the Campus Center to what was apparently yet another architectural monstrosity: the Silverton Student Center. My head was buzzing with a strange, lingering static—no doubt some side effect from wearing Alaric’s glasses and having all that data and knowledge mainlined directly into my brain for the last hour.

  I rubbed my head as I looked up from my phone and approached the entrance. I stepped through a set of massive sliding glass doors and was immediately greeted by a sprawling, wide-open concourse.

  Super-tall ceilings, again, because why build a ceiling with a normal height when you can build one that requires scaffolding to change a lightbulb? Off to the left was a wide entryway feeding into the main cafeteria Yvette had been raving about earlier this morning. To the right, occupying the opposite side of the expansive floor plan, sat a campus bookstore and a smaller, aesthetic-looking café. Oddly enough, the café was situated against a raw, exposed brick facade that completely clashed with the rest of the Institute's modern, washed stone interior. It almost looked like they had simply built this massive facility right over the top of an older building and couldn't be bothered to knock the last wall down.

  Before I could finish inspecting the mismatched masonry, a voice cut through the ambient chatter. “Jesse! Over here!” I glanced over and spotted Felicity and Ruben leaning against a thick concrete pillar near the café entrance.

  “Hey,” I said, walking over to join them. “What’s up? How were the breakouts?”

  “Fine,” Ruben said. His voice was incredibly stiff, his arms crossed over his chest so tightly I thought he might snap a rib. “Except for the part where I got stuck with some bitchy blonde who thinks she’s a five-star general. Why the hell are we being forced into permanent combat groups on the very first day? Who thought that was a good idea?!”

  Felicity rolled her eyes, her tone dripping with a smug, teasing lilt. “Well, my group is actually kind of amazing. I got lucky. All of us are girls, everyone's super chill, and we already work well together. Also, they are not permanent; you can join different ones.”

  “Good for you,” Ruben grumbled bitterly. “If we had just been assigned to the same room, we could have had a solid group right out of the gate. All of us! Hell, I’d even take Jesse dragging us down over that absolute nightmare of a blon—”

  Ruben’s rant died abruptly in his throat. His eyes went wide, fixing on something over my shoulder. Without another word, he quickly side-stepped, physically shrinking himself as he ducked behind the concrete pillar to hide.

  I turned around to see what had completely terrified him.

  A young blonde girl was walking past us. She was tall, with a lean, athletic figure. Her hair was wrangled into a tight ponytail that swung behind her with every step. She was dressed in a modest pleated skirt paired with an oversized black sweater that rested atop a white collared shirt. She carried a stack of orientation folders against her chest and trudged purposefully toward the café line, her expression completely neutral. She didn’t even spare us a passing glance.

  Felicity and I turned our heads back to the pillar at exactly the same time. We had both clearly just watched the same sight.

  “Was that her, then?” I asked with a smile. I’d never seen Ruben freak out over someone like this before.

  Ruben peeked his head back around the concrete edge, his eyes darting toward the café to make sure the coast was clear. “Satan herself—yeah. Her name is Trinity.” He emphasized her name like he was spewing poison with every syllable.

  Felicity popped an eyebrow, looking entirely unimpressed. “Ruben, she actually looks really cute and sweet. What on earth could you have possibly done to piss her off in less than an hour?”

  Ruben made a highly offended, strangled noise in the back of his throat, his face flushing red as he sputtered, trying to formulate a defense.

  I couldn't help it. I let out a loud, genuine chuckle at the sheer spectacle of it.

  “And what are you laughing at?!” Felicity demanded, shooting me a pointed, accusatory glare.

  “Nothing, nothing,” I said, raising both hands in surrender. “I ain’t taking sides without knowing what actually happened. I just think it's funny. He’s never reacted like that to anything.”

  I let my hands drop, glancing back toward the massive sliding glass doors. I scanned the incoming flow of students. My brain flashed back to the digital feed: Yvette violently shoving Malika, Xankoris staring blankly at a wall, Paul and that Bao Lin girl looking utterly lost at their teammates infighting.

  I had to do something, because that was nothing like what I had seen from the Draft regarding their formation. Most everything went off without much of a hitch, so why now?

  “Where’s Yvette?” I asked, casually shifting the conversation away from Ruben’s apparent new nemesis.

  “Haven't seen her or Paul yet,” Ruben said, stepping fully out from behind the pillar and adjusting his shirt to regain a shred of dignity. “But knowing Evie, she probably picked a fight with the instructor and is currently leading a mutiny.”

  ‘Oh, you thought you had it bad, Ruben… You have no idea.’