Interstellar Academy by Kennedy Harkins (read books for money .TXT) 📕

Professor Earhart pinched her nose in frustration after a few minutes of silence. "Very well. I don't have time to interrogate you all morning. There's school wide meeting at nine, something both were supposed to attend. No matter, I'll just let you stew for a couple hours instead." She rose to her feet. "Maybe then you'll both be in a more forthcoming mood."

An AI rose through the hole in the office we'd flown through on our floating metal discs. It dismounting with far more grace than either of us had managed and motioned for the girl and I to follow it down the spiral.

It had a scar from its eyebrow to its chin, and it was my turn to tremble. I stumbled back against the girl who bit out a curse when I stepped on her foot. She walked around me to join the AI on her own disc. There was no fear in her eye, but, strangely, there was a kind of recognition. She knew the robot that had broken Mae's arm somehow.

After a moment, I followed them reluctantly, not wanting Professor Earhart to have another reason to mistrust me. The AI led us down the the base level of the spiral building where it shoved us in an unoccupied classroom and locked the door behind it.

As the last tumbler turned over in the door, I looked over at the girl. She was sitting up on a desk, legs crossed under her, staring at me with a blank expression that would've done Mae proud.

"So. Are you in on it?" she asked. "I mean, obviously, you're in on something. Good boys like you don't just break into the central control room for no reason."

I chose to ignore her first question. "Neither do heiresses with a lot to lose."

She dismounted the table in one fluid motion and started pacing in loose circles around me. "I had a reason, alright. A good one too. And then you waltzed in and ruined it." The girl glanced up at me. "Was it deliberate? Do you really hate this school that much?"

"I don't hate the Academy," I said numbly, thinking of how my answer had changed since I'd first arrived.

"Then why put it in danger? Or is it patriotism?" She said the last part with a mocking sneer.

I wasn't good with interrogation techniques. I didn't know how to get her to give up everything she knew while keeping my knowledge a secret. So I didn't. "A high level, military Tundrian approached me at the beginning of the school year with a proposition. He wanted me to map out the school and its security measure for him in exchange for a high ranking position for me upon graduation." I kept Rike's name out of it. "That's it."

She waved an angry finger at me. "As if that wasn't enough. I don't know about this "high ranking official", but he's probably the same guy I saw talking to one of the school's AIs about attacking the Academy."

"Why didn't you say anything to Earhart?" I asked harshly. I felt a dread in my stomach.

She scuffed her pink boot against the floor. "I wasn't exactly...following the rules when I overheard that."

"So you looked out for your own skin instead of everyone else's. Sounds familiar," I said bitterly, mad at myself as much as I was at the girl.

A loud bang interrupted our conversation, shaking the foundation of the building. I grabbed onto the metal table to steady myself as the human was thrown to the floor. The vibrating continued until I could feel it in my teeth, a pulse more constant than my own heart beat.

"Emergency stop," the girl said breathlessly.

She ran over to the door, finding the invisible keypad with relative ease. She pulled off the cover and ripped the wires from their original places. I was getting used to seeing her do this. I barely gaped at her dexterous hands pulling off the protective cover and attaching the rise together at the speed of light.

The door slide open, and I was right on her tail running out of it. The exit doors were glass, so I could see that the atmosphere outside was no longer sunny. The air looked thick, like the campus was covered in smoke.

A metal clanking sounded behind us, footsteps coming closer. I spun, my heart threatening to shoot its way up my throat and out my mouth. Reaching for the stun stick, I cursed when I realized I'd left it at the apartment to look less suspicious.

"Fight," the robtic voice relayed my own command from months ago back at me. The scar stood in sharp relief against its ghostly white face. "Fight."

The girl shook her head. "Run."

Before I could stop her she was out the door, coughing in the smoke. I charged after her, taking a last deep breath of clean air to sustain me to the next building. I grabbed her arm with one hand, pulling her towards the medical center across the street. The other hand I used to cover her mouth, hoping she'd get the nonverbal message and hold her breath.

I shut the door behind us, locking the poisonous air and the rampaging AI out on the other side. It wouldn't hold either of them for long.

Running up the old fashioned stairs, I didn't even entertain the thought of taking the elevator, an electronic machine that could be hacked by other electronics. From my stays here with Mae, I knew the emergency supplies were on the third floor. I set the pace, but the girl had trouble keeping up. Too soon to tell if it was her own physical limits or the paralyzing gasses she breathed in.

Handing her one of the two breathers and placing the the other over my mouth, I watched her movements. They were stiff, uncoordinated. Not a good sign.

The lights went out, leaving us in a dark ward filled with tiny, floating medbots and a myriad of empty hospital beds. All the patients had probably been at the meeting like the rest of the school. A meeting that had been held outside. A place that was now chock full of noxious gas.

I shared that revelation with the girl.

She grinned, but it was forced. "Sooting that it should be the best students left standing. And her cranky sidekick."

I let that comment go, leading her down the most lit part of the building now, a hallway surrounded with windows. I wasn't too keen on standing around in the dark with the medbots waiting for the scared AI to show up. And me without a weapon. A bead of sweat rolled down my back.

At the end of the hallway our luck ran out.

"Fight." The AI stepped out from around the corner we were approaching.

The human let out a squeak and attempted to keep up with me. I had to drag her along, her muscles not working right. It cut down on our speed so significantly I had to duck inside a private room, so the AI wouldn't catch us. Its fingers had been inches from our backs.

I ran over to the window, looking down breathlessly at the drop. It was too far, but there was a ledge halfway down. If we landed on that, we could fall the rest of the way without injury. But it'd have to be exact. And we'd have to be quick to avoid the AI seeing and following.

Two qualities the human didn't possess at thIs moment.

She was leaning against the hospital bed a few feet of me when I looked back. Not because she was tired, though that was probably part of it, but because she couldn't support herself. She'd slow me down, no doubt. Maybe make it impossible to escape.

No one would know.

Then there was her knowledge. Or rather the fact that she had too much of it. She was a danger to my future career, to the Commander. Hell, if she could tie Rike to this AI attack, she was a liability to my entire race.

There was no one around. This was survival.

She glanced up at me, her expression grim. The girl knew I'd done the math, knew what decision I'd come to. I'd expected some kind of anger, but all there was was resignation. I guess my actions weren't surprising to her in the least.

I got ready to say it wasn't personal, something I wasn't even sure was true, when there was a banging on the door. Her head whipped away from me and towards the noise, but I could still see the profile of her face. Her features were drawn, her skin pale and damp with sweat.

She was scared.

And I knew then, that even though no one was around to see, that no one would know what I'd done, and that this was life or death, I couldn't leave her.

Because she wasn’t the only one who was afraid.

I slipped my arm under hers, gripping her around the chest tightly. We hobbled over to the window as the angry pounding continued. The first lock gave as the glass slid aside for us. I brought her around to the front of my body so her face was facing mine. That last thing I needed was her screaming at the ground racing up towards us and alerting the AI to our position.

"Hold tight," I said.

And then I dove.

My wings spread out of their own violation, and I reveled in the feeling of the wind rushing through my feathers after long months of being grounded. I angled them back, increasing altitude and my window of time for hitting that ledge.

If it'd been just me, I could've floated myself to the ground, but I wasn't used to passengers. The extra weight and the short drop meant that plan was out. So, since I didn't want to end up squashed, the ledge was our only hope.

I landed and absorbed the shock by bending my knees with the force. The girl flailed like a fish and almost sent us tumbling over the edge. I shot her a dirty look as soon as we were stabilized, but the effects of the nerve gas hadn't worn off. Her body was not her own.

The next jump was relatively easy compared to that, and before I knew it, we were safely on the ground. Well, maybe not safely, I thought, glancing up at the window we'd thrown ourselves from. The door would've given by now, the AI right behind us.

"Well, look who it is," an achingly familiar voice called out from the smoke.

The next moment, Mae and the Animarian boy were right in front of us, wearing gas masks and looking a little worse for wear. I'd never been so happy to see anyone in my life, and I'm sure if the human could work her facial muscles, she would've smiled.

"Let's save the reunion till we're back at base," Mae drawled, looking up to the window I kept giving wary glances. "Come on. The others are waiting in the Tak Raw center."

"Others?"

We ran along through the smoke towards the northern side of campus. With the girl still hobbling, I had to practically drag her along. She cursed me the entire time, and it made my vehemently wish I'd left her for the AI. Maybe it wasn't too late to go back.

Mae peered cautiously around the corner, stun stick at the ready. "Rike sent out an alert to a handful of us, so we were sequestered when the gas dropped."

"Who's Rike?" the girl asked.

I deliberately jostled her more than necessary, but answered. "The high ranking official I told you about. How many students are safe?"

Mae shrugged. "Twenty? Maybe more. The