Page 19 of Validus Vale Academy 1
“Because my mind is not on one culinary track, Dunc,” she sighs. “Anyone would think you had a pancake fetish.”
That makes him grin. “Pancake fetish? Moi? You’dbatterbelieve it.”
He winks, and Willow throws her napkin at him. The three of us continue to eat as the room buzzes with conversation and so many internal voices that my mental shield is getting super taxed.
PANCAKE = pan, cap, cake, pack, peak, ace, pace, peace….
Peace? Yes please. Thank the Gods this stupid game manages to soothe my chaotic reality.
“Can you believe Naomi Watson stopped to help us?” Willow nudges me, getting my attention again. “She’s like the coolest girl ever. I saw her play Fateball last year and she kicked ass.” Willow has hearts in her eyes.
Duncan ignores the girl-talk and pulls a laptop from his backpack, instantly getting sucked into some video game. At the same time, Willow grabs her tablet to show me Naomi Watson’s school profile. Leaving her to gaze at the photos of Naomi in tight gray gym clothes, I extract my new tablet and log in. It takes a minute to figure out the system.
“Ooh, show me your timetable,” Willow says, taking a gulp of coffee and shutting down her cyber-stalking. “I bet we have all the same classes.” She pulls my tablet towards her as the schedule loads, but then a frown creases her brow. “Wait, this can’t be right. You’re in advanced Restricted Studies and advanced Combat Skills, Theo. Those are only for Elites.” She twists the tablet back, “Look.”
Good grief, she’s right. Why am I enrolled in those?
“You’d better go see your counselor,” Willow mutters, “who do you have?”
I shrug, and Duncan pauses whatever he’s doing and turns my tablet towards him. “Here, it says you have Professor Feniks.” his eyes widen. “Uh-oh. That’s the professor who picked you up, right? You said he was a douche, eh?”
Professor Feniks. Excellent. “Yep. That’s going to be fun. He alreadylovesme.” Not.
“May I?” Duncan asks, his hand still on my tablet.
“Sure, whatever.”
The next thing I know, he’s bringing up some windows of code. “It looks like someone changed your class schedule a couple of days ago. You’d originally been in all remedial classes with us. It must be a mistake.”
Sigh. I take back the tablet and reluctantly look for the location of Professor Feniks’ office.
7
As I slump down in my office chair, twirling a cigarette around my fingers, I delete the latest emailed complaint from Smithfield next door.
He’s always bitching about the smell, but until he comes and has a conversation with me, face to face, I’m not changing any of my habits—fucking kusipää.
I suck down some more nicotine, then park the cigarette in an overflowing ashtray.
Piles of paper litter the desk, and at a guess, there are at least a hundred unread emails flashing red in my inbox. Gods. Is all this worth it? I fucking hate students, and the faculty here are even worse. Almost half a year at Validus Vale and I’ve madenollaheadway.
The original idea had been simple enough; get a job at the academy, then surreptitiously find out what the fuck had happened to Maximus. It wasn’t exactly rocket science to spell Coach Oliver into deciding to take a sabbatical. Getting myself hired as his replacement—slightly trickier, but doable. It’s true that the best way to get people to do what you want is to make them think it was their idea in the first place. A few whispered conversations in the right ears were all that was needed toconvince the board that a ‘military rigour’ was essential for life at Validus Vale.
Omitting the fact that I’d been medically discharged because my left arm was fucked up after the IED incident. The healers did what they could, but some damage is too much.
So here I am, going nowhere fast,ingen steder,and pandering to privileged assholes who are just here because mummy and daddy can pony up for a private education.
Gah!
These little brats will go on to have positions of power all around the world; presidents and mob bosses (like the current head of the Russian Bratva—that fuckingrunkata), or CEO’s and tech magnates (billionaire founder of Mystik-Tok, anyone?).
All powered-up and polished alumni of this place—or its equivalent.
On the other hand, Elites in my home country? A handful, tops. Not because the people of Kormovia are less, they’re just poor. Simple as that. The patch of frozen nowhere, wedged between Finland and Russia, doesn’t exactly breed privilege. Becoming an Elite takes time, money, muscle, and grit. Hard to train when you’re worried about feeding your family. I’d like to drop a load of these asshole students in the middle of the fell region and see iftheycould make ends meet.
Spoiled privileged fuckers, the lot of them.
Except.
