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Kira shut the door behind her. Scope and Joby were counting money on the floor and she kicked aside a pair of jeans on her way over to join them.
“Urgh… you guys have got to start cleaning up after yourselves….So how did it go?” she asked brightly.
Scope looked at her, pausing from his counting. “I think it went well.”
“What did you decide?”
“Nothing, yet.”
“What?!” Kira’s face fell. “You were supposed to sort it out today Scope!”
“Hey hey hey,” Joby interrupted before Scope could bite back. “This deal is a little more important that we originally thought it would be Ki.”
She raised an eyebrow. “More important than supplying weaponry to the Creye Station?”
“The guys we saw weren’t just from the Station – turns out they have serious links with the Academy. The Academy want in on our merchandise Kira!”
Kira looked from Joby to Scope. Joby wore a look of eager excitement, whereas Scope scrutinised his sister’s reaction before letting his feelings known. Slowly, Kira smiled. “The Academy…” she breathed. “They want to use us?”
Scope nodded. “Exactly. This is our link, Kira, this is our big break. Not only will we be supplying to one of the major Stations, but we’ll be supplying to the only Station Academy in the world!”
Kira’s smile grew into a grin. “When is our next meeting? I’m not missing the next one.”
“They want to select some people to try out the weaponry before they seal anything, so we’re taking two of everything we supply to them during the Academy working day tomorrow,” Joby explained.
“’people’? As in what, students?”
He shrugged. “I guess. These guys didn’t say.”
“How many guys were there?”
“Three. One fairly old tall guy, someone dark and silent and a little short guy with a weird face.”
“Didn’t you get names?”
Scope glanced at Joby, who was suddenly absorbed in studying his money meticulously. Kira rolled her eyes. “You are hopeless. Why did I ever let you do it on your own... More specifically – how did you ever manage without me while I was growing up?” She rose to her feet. “I’m taking a shower.”
“You’re taking a cold one,” Joby said without looking up.
“What?!” No one answered her, so she shook him by the shoulder. “Hello? Why?!”
Scope coughed from beside her. “Erm… I might have used all the hot water…”
Kira threw her head back in annoyance. “Scope! You had a hot shower this morning, I haven’t had one for two days! That’s not fair!”
He looked awkward. “Sorry Ki. If it helps, we’ll pay the water bill out of my share of the profits… and I can boil water for a bath if you want?”
She turned away frostily. “Forget it,” she snapped, “I’ll have a cold one.”
Their house was a reasonable size, but they had a large amount of outdoor land, that stretched down to the valley with the stream. The valley didn’t technically belong to them, but it was so secluded and deserted that it might as well have. The stream came down from the green hills to the west of Yex, and merged with the river Lene going into the city from the north. The house, which was called Kasanne, from the combined names of its occupants, sat in the west region of Yex that spread right up into the hills. It was counted as part of the city, but its residents were rich enough to own large amounts of land that they kept as gardens, and so the houses were very isolated in their respective land. This made the effect of living in the area similar to that of living in the countryside.
The house itself was originally Ryanne’s having been given to her at a young age and inherited when she reached eighteen. Until then she had lived with her adoptive guardians with the other few Agency children.
She had been born artificially – a ‘test-tube baby’. They had manufactured genes to shape her physical appearance exactly, and then scientifically monitored her growth and health until she was ready to be ‘born’. With no parents, her early years had been spent in and out of laboratories and foster carers, until she was old enough to join the Station Youth Agency. It wasn’t a new thing to experiment with human life, but Ryanne was one of a kind in that she had been the first baby to have been entirely healthy and to have experienced no difficulties. Human rights fighters had picked up on the moral wrongness of artificial birth and it was now illegal, so it was unlikely there would ever be any more.
Ryanne wasn’t alone, however. During the three years after her birth and before the ban, a total of seven children had been conceived through this method. Once they reached the age of four, they were taken in by the SYA – an organisation run by the station for unwanted children. They were adopted by the agency and then trained up as Station agents and sent out on missions only children could do. Ryanne, as the oldest, was the best, and by the time she was eleven, she was talented enough to give some of the adult agency workers a run for their money.
It wasn’t what she wanted to do though. The Agency division of the Station was primarily spy work, undercover. She knew what she really wanted to be doing was joining the Pupil Station and fighting the Empire. She did a little with the Agency – quite often Empire spies would make their way to the planet’s civilisations and she’d done her part in rooting them out – but it wasn’t enough. The Station wouldn’t let her join the main division without going through the regular routes of training however, and so when she met Kasie at eighteen, they moved into her new house together and joined the Academy at nineteen.
Ryanne never told anyone about the circumstances of her existence. Kasie knew she had grown up in the SYA, but didn’t like to press into her background. Anyone who grew up in the SYA didn’t like discussing their backgrounds. Most of them had been unwanted or their parents were unsuitable to take care of them, so Kasie just assumed it was one of those, and didn’t go digging for information. Ryanne didn’t even tell many people about the Agency, unless they asked her outright. Not many people did.
“I hope you didn’t get too rough last night…”
Kasie went bright pink and suddenly became very interested in her CL work. Layer laughed. “Kasie collapsed when they got back home last night and Raze tripped over her. He broke his finger,” he explained to Ryanne.
She smirked. “Bad luck Kase. How is he?”
“Oh he’s fine, but the Academy aren’t too happy with him. I think he’s definitely going to be in out classes next year,” Layer said, fiddling around with one of his eyes. Ryanne watched in fascination as he rolled it back into his head and fiddled with a couple of minute wires that were now visible. He slipped and poked himself with his fingernail. “Ow!” Cycke the droid flashed indigo in exasperation and hovered over.
“Let me do that,” it said, and Layer complied, letting the droid electrocute his eye and use its special technology to rearrange the artificial eye. After a few seconds it stopped, and moved away from Layer’s head with royal blue satisfaction glowing from its screen. Layer smiled.
“Thanks Cycke.”
It didn’t acknowledge his thanks in any way, just settled itself into the gap between Ryanne and Layer. Ryanne looked closely at his eye.
“That’s amazing,” she stated. “How much did it cost to have put in?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. My parents don’t talk about it. We like to pretend it doesn’t exist,” he answered with a light grin. “Code and Logic first, I think.” Ryanne knew he was deliberately changing the subject away from his eye. It was never his favourite feature, although she sometimes thought it would be cool to have something different, unique. But she understood that Layer was the type of person to hate any weakness he had, and obviously he saw his eyes as his weakness.
“Yeah,” she replied to his statement. “Will you help me out with my project? I could do with a little help.”
“Hey!” Kasie interjected. “I can help you!”
Ryanne laughed. “No offence Kase, but you’re worse than me.”
Layer smiled. “Sure. What’s the problem?”
“The Academy is considering changing our weapons supplier for next year,” he began, and Ryanne glanced at Layer to see his reaction. He looked every bit as blank as she felt. “In things like guns, blades and flyer artillery. Unfortunately we have no way to tell if our probable new supplier provides suitable goods.”
“Ok. So, why are you talking to us?” Kasie asked plainly.
“We need students to test the supplies before we agree to anything,” he explained, and looked at them all in turn.
“Again, why us?” Kasie repeated, but Layer stopped her.
“We’ll do it,” he offered with a loose grin. “What’re we going to do?”
Tull smiled briefly at Layer, and then turned back to his desk, speaking as he shuffled through a few piles of paper. “You three, myself, Yoke and Joleston will be meeting with our potential suppliers this afternoon.”
“But we have –”
“I have arranged with Karka that you can miss unarmed combat today. You should come straight to the board room. Miss Sculler, you know where that is,” he explained, and Ryanne knew he meant the room she’d been taken to get her temp pass. “There we will elaborate on the details, and everything will be make clear, alright?” They nodded. “Oh, none of you have plans this summer do you?” He didn’t wait for them to respond before carrying on. “Well, if you do, you’ll have to cancel them. I’ll see you later.” He headed for a door at the back of the room which lead to his personal office, then stopped. “Oh yes, and Raze Hocke will be there too.”
Ryanne, Kasie and Layer blinked at each other, before leaving the room and getting their lunch in the cafeteria.
“Why did you just say yes without thinking Layer?!” Ryanne said as they sat down on the table with Raze.
He shrugged. “Well, whatever it is it’s got to be fun. If it singles us out from the rest of the Academy that’s good right?”
“Wonder why he chose us though,” Kasie murmured thoughtfully.
“We talking about the weapons thing?” Raze asked glumly, and Ryanne nodded. “Well I know why they picked me. Tull spelt it out in great detail. It’s my ‘chance to redeem myself’. After the failure of this year, they’ve decided I need to prove I have what it takes to pass the final year if I repeat it.”
Kasie smiled reassuringly. “You’ve got it.” Then she spotted his splinted finger and shovelled food into her mouth quickly.
“Yeah, but why us?” Ryanne brought up Kasie’s question again. “Surely it’s favouritism to pick a select few people for no reason…”
Cycke flashed an odd cyan, and spoke up. “It’s obvious. They’re sending you somewhere to test this equipment, but also to test you. Layer, you want to specialise in computer technology – the scientific side rather than the usage of weapons. You’re being sent in case these weapons are faulty. They want to test your ability to use the scientific skill you have in fixing them. Kasie, you’re going for the blade side of things, and in case you need to get out of a situation unarmed because the weapons are faulty. Everyone knows you’re the best at blades and unarmed combat in your year – at least out of the females. Ryanne you’re JJ’s pet student. You’re easily the most talented when it comes to guns and other concealed technology use. You’re also the almost complete team that were put together for the Tiché mission. It’s a repeat of Tiché, only this time they’re hoping you’ll prove what you didn’t prove before.”
Everyone paused as they thought about the robot’s analysis.
“But…” Ryanne began, but stopped. You could never argue with Cycke without insulting him, and that was not advisable – especially since Murix had turned up at the academy today with a bald head and clothes that looked suspiciously like they’d been dipped in oil and badly cleaned, to the amusement of everyone except himself.