The trip down through the place led us through an open room. One with a balcony that ran around the center of it. I picked up my pace so that I could take a moment to look over the edge without fearing that I might lose my guide.

  A column of open space spanned the entire center of the building. While far below there was what looked like a plaza of sorts, a glass dome let in the waning sunlight high above. Throughout the column, small balconies pushed into the empty space. To my surprise, some were even missing any sort of railing.

  Not that I could see much of the railing, let alone the walls. The whole place was covered in plants. From vines to ferns, a variety of dwarf trees to even a bush or two. Something was planted in every spot that had room for it.

  I wanted to stand there and try to figure out what each plant was. Unfortunately for me, I could see my guide making their way into the far hall. With a hop and a twist, I raced to catch up. Just in time to join them as the elevator doors opened.

  Which is odd, as I didn’t recall taking an elevator when I got here. Was I really that tired, or was there some other way onto this floor? It couldn’t have been stairs, as I would have been cursing the architect.

  They managed to press something on the screen by the time I got in and turned around. Whatever it was, I couldn’t see through their body. So it came as a bit of a shock when the elevator started to smoothly climb.

  Two minutes later, the doors opened to reveal a massive room covered in a glass dome. Through which I could see other such domes. They almost looked like soap bubbles. Even in how most of them seemed to be connected in one way or another.

  My eyes wandered over everything I could see as I tried to keep up with my guide. Eventually, I found myself looking at an odd assortment of tables contained within a small enclosed space. Okay, so that wasn’t so odd. But the fact that the floor inside the space was pure glass with some sort of aquarium under it was.

  Sure, I have lived near the ocean all my life, but that didn’t mean I had ever seen it. After all, the monsters haunting those waters were insane. Yet, from what I could tell, some of the things under that glass were only those that you could find in the ocean.

  Yes, I had read one or two books, not to mention the movies and shows I had watched, that went over the ocean of the old world. What I didn’t understand was the fact that they were here at all. Most of those things were deep-water creatures. A place that I had found little to no current information on.

  So how had anyone managed to get anything from there? And how had any of these things survived out there without any visible mutations? Somehow, I doubted I would get any of my questions answered.

  Still, that didn’t stop me from trying. “Where did they find these things?”

  “They are descendants of the creatures rescued from various aquariums and homes. Brought here for study and as a source of food.” My guide answered me as they gestured for a waiter.

  “Ah, Miss Kinsley.” A gentleman appeared around a corner. He didn’t so much walk as glide over the glass as he came to us. And with him came a definitive answer to my question as to her gender. “I see you have a guest today. Are you expecting any more to join you, or would you like a table for two?”

  I don’t know why, but I held my breath as I waited to see what she would say. “The table for two will be fine.”

  “Sure,” he held a hand out. “Right this way.”

  Okay, I really wanted to ask this guy if he was using a power to move around or if it was some kind of training because each movement was so smooth. Hell, if I had been watching him through a screen, I would have assumed someone was playing with transitions or some special effects.

  The trip through the space was short as he led us to a small table. “Your server will be right with you.” With those words, he vanished around another corner.

  She didn’t say anything as she took a seat and tapped a small button on her side of the table. A small window of text appeared in front of her. Too bad I had never been all that good at reading holographic text backwards.

  Taking a cue from her, I joined her and tapped on a similar button. A long list of things appeared in front of me. They weren’t all dishes or drinks. If I was reading some of this right, this place had a long list of offerings.

  From the mostly normal to the outright exotic. Then again, given what they had swimming under us, it might have only been exotic to me. After all, meat was something we had to splurge to buy.

  My finger slid through the options. With every highlighted offer, an image of the item would pop up in a window to the side. Finally, I settled on a hamburger with fries. And I mean, I wanted the fully loaded burger. From a real bun to lean beef. Real cheese to mushrooms. I wanted everything they offered.

  Of course, then I had to go and read the price and wince. Sure, I didn’t expect food to be free, but damn that hurt to read. So much for dinner. I would have to find something cheaper. And if I couldn’t, my stay here was going to get very interesting, very fast.

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  “If you are worried about the price, don’t.” I started to shake my head at her words and was about to say something but the glare she shot me through our screens was enough to cause the words to bunch up in my throat. “You can pay me back by telling me just where you got that watch.”

  I looked at the watch, trying to figure out how she would take my words. Would she yell at me for accepting such a gift? Say that I now owed the guy something? Or would she demand to be introduced to him?

  In all honesty, I had no clue, but it wasn’t like I had a choice. So, I started to tell her about my run-in with Alexander. Only stopping for a moment while a server took our order. “Wait, you are telling me he hid in your room and you didn’t know who he was?”

  With a shrug, I spoke just as the server came back. This time with our two plates. “I never thought I would run into one, let alone talk to them. So why pay attention to any of their names?”

  “Well,” she shook her head in exasperation. “I can officially say you need to get out of the shop more.”

  “Hey!” While I pretended to sound annoyed by her words, I was happy that she seemed to open up to me a bit more.

  Her smirk was malicious. “Hmm, couldn’t contradict me, could you?” I rolled my eyes. “But fine, how about you tell me what track you are on?”

  “Track?”

  Her eyes narrowed a bit at me as her face lost the open mirth. “You didn’t just sneak into the academy, did you? You accepted an offer to attend, right?”

  “Yeah,” I nodded as I debated bringing out the offer, but decided to keep that to myself.

  She took a second to answer. “While the departments are used to determine what group you are working with and what resources you might have, tracks determine what your end goal is.”

  She paused for a second to make sure that I was following. With a nod, she continued. “This is because there are some tracks that can fall under multiple departments. Where what you learn can be used in different ways to do different things.” That made a lot of sense.

  “So,” I looked up as I tried to come up with an example that would show that I understood what she was talking about. “A fighter could take a weapon crafting track and learn to take care of and even make weapons, but they would always be focused on whatever weapon they used. While an engineer could take that same track and learn how to make new weapons and how to make completely custom weapons.”

  “Correct.” She gestured at herself. “As you could probably tell, I am in the engineering department, but my track is focused on city architecture with a focus on city design and defense.”

  “Wow. That sounds a bit complicated. Your family must be proud of you.”

  “Yeah,” the moment I saw her smile falter, I knew I had touched upon a sore subject. “Not so much.” A burst of air exploded out of her as she worked up the courage to say something. “They wanted me to follow in their footsteps. To study fighting and harvesting. All so I can take over their small group when they retire.”

  “And I am guessing that is not what you want to do?”

  “God no!” Her hands flew up. “I don’t want to leave the city to hunt monsters that will never approach the city. I want to save and protect people from the monsters that do. But, no, that is not good enough for them. They went so far as to tell me that I have until the end of the first semester to change my mind or they would cut me off.”

  Her smirk returned with a bit of a glint of mischief. “But jokes on them. I have enough credits saved up from odd jobs to last me long enough for me to get some work and contacts. Students that want their weapons fixed or altered. Teachers who want equipment repaired or upgraded. Anything and everything to allow me to live my life on my terms. Not theirs.”

  I almost wanted to clap at the inspiring speech. Hell, her words were great, and I hoped that she could pull it off, but I was pretty sure that she was underestimating the amount of work and trouble such a plan would bring with it.

  I mean, how many students here were in a similar situation? How many were in the same department? Path? She was going to be fighting for each and every job. I didn’t want to tell her to give up and give in, but what else could she do?

  My words were hesitant to come out. “What if you have issues finding enough work to support you?”

  “If that happens, then I can always go hunting for the materials I need. Anything I don’t need, I can sell for credits.” So she had thought of it as a possibility. “Now, what about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “What department and track did you take?” She leaned slightly forward as if in anticipation of what I was about to say.

  “Undecided.”

  My answer caused her to scoff. “Of course you would be one of those people that cannot decide on what to do.”

  “Hey,” I protested. “It wasn’t like I expected to get an offer, let alone that I would accept it.”

  If I thought I had her full attention before, I had been wrong. Her eyes bore their way into me as she scrutinized me. “And why wouldn’t you accept an offer to come to the academy?”

  My mind spun as I tried to come up with a decent reason. A story or reason that had enough truth that it wouldn’t come back to bite me in the ass later. Eventually, I gave in and told her some of the cold, hard truth. “Because I didn’t have any powers.” Didn’t have versus didn’t think. Close enough.

  That took her aback. “No powers?”

  “None.”

  “You must have some impressive skills to get in here without…” She trailed off for a second. “Wait, you said you didn’t have any. That means you have power now. That or it was hidden or something.” I had to give it to her; she was quick on the uptake. I had been hoping she wouldn’t notice my phrasing.

  I was so happy when my pad started to vibrate. “One second.” With a quick swipe, I answered the call. “Yeah?”

  Bert let out a low snarl as he spoke. “What happened to staying near me until the first day of class?”

  I winced at his words as I had promised exactly that. But it wasn’t my fault, mostly. “I got lost.”

  “After running from me.”

  “Only because you were being clingy.” I tried to think about a way out of this. “Also, what about your girlfriend. Surely she would love to see you now that you are attending the academy this year.”

  “Dude, Marcy was the one who sent me to pick you up and make sure you got food.” Ah, yeah, she would do that. “Tell me where you are so I can come get you.”

  I cringed a bit. “I kinda, sorta, already ate.”

  “With what credits?”

  Yeah, not going to tell him that I had basically mooched off of the first person I had met at this place that wasn’t here to teach or kill me. “Just, meet me at one of the workshops.”

  “Tell him to meet us at workshop M7 point 7.” Kinsley chimed in.

  Before I could relay her message, Bert asked, “Who was that?”

  “No one.”

  “Aww… does little Eli finally have a—” I cut the call before he could finish that unfortunate sentence.

  We both sat there in silence for a moment before both of us burst into laughter. It took us a couple of minutes, but finally we calmed down enough to talk. With a push, my guide started to get up. “We should get going.”

  I took a moment to look down at the multitude of sea creatures before getting up to follow her to wherever this workshop was. All while wondering why she was being so nice to me now.