Sporemageddon

Markham nodded and leaned back into his seat. "It's not a sure thing yet, and it's not something that would happen so soon. The Eden-Powell Academy of Arts and Sciences is the best school in this city, by far, but what makes it so good is its competitive nature. Or so I've been told."

"Alright," I said. "So it's hard to get into?"

"No, it's difficult to stay in. The school accepts plenty of students and by its last year, half of them are removed. You either need smarts, political power, or money to stay in."

That sounded a lot more fierce than what I would expect from a school, but maybe that made some sense. It would breed exactly the kind of person willing to cut corners and hyper-focus on success that would, in turn, run the kinds of companies and corporations I was used to seeing.

"So, when do you want me to start this?" I asked.

"In two years."

I blinked. "Huh?" Latest content publıshed on novel{f}ire.net

"It's the only time I could get you in," he said with a little wave of his hand to dismiss my curiosity about that. "Besides, the school starts admitting students when they're twelve, and while something must have gone terribly wrong for you to be as... adult in your thinking as you are, you will never be able to look like you're old enough. You're what, six? Seven years old?"

I crossed my arms. "I'm seven, but I'll be eight soon. And I have been growing. Though... yes, I doubt I'll ever be tall." My mother wasn't and... had Dada been tall? It was hard to remember. "You'll have to disguise yourself as a boy," he added.

I shrugged. "Easy enough."

"Maybe at that age, yes," he said. "I wouldn't approach you, but the opportunity is there, and it costs me little to take it."

"Right, which is where my needs come in," I said. "What do I get for this?"

"I don't suppose my gratitude would be worth much?"

"You'd be supposing incorrectly if you did," I said.

Markham grinned. "Yes, indeed. Very well. First, you'll need a better education to even pass the entrance exam into the Academy. I can provide that, or at least the textbooks and perhaps a tutor to help you learn some of the basics that won't be covered by the books."

"That seems like it'll help me in service of helping you," I said.

"Fair enough. In that case, I can give you a small stipend as well. No more than a shilling per week."

I crossed my arms. "I'd make more begging."

"And yet this wouldn't require you to beg," he said. "It's what I can afford to pay. If you're here doing tutoring, then I can also allow you a warm meal while you're at the Union building."

For some people in my position that would have been enough. A tiny amount of money and a stomach that didn't growl as hard was a huge boon. I wasn't quite as hard up as most though. "You'll have to do more than that."

"I can offer you one more thing. The protection of the Union. Both in hiding your identity, masking your... previous activities, and in giving you a place to stay until things in the city calm down."

I paused as I considered that. It was a nice thing to have, certainly. But there would be downsides. I'd be more firmly in the grasp of the union. I'd be working for them in order to improve myself to better work for them later. That was... not the most ideal of prospects. I had goals that were wholly my own that didn't involve direct intervention and time spent working with the union.

Sure, a lot of those plans were vague at the moment, but I still wanted to build my own future, once I was done burning this city to the ground.

And that was where I really got stuck. My ultimate goal, was it still revenge?

Revenge was a flame that burned bright and hard, but it didn't burn forever. Did I still want to kill each member of the legal gang that had killed my father? Yes. Did I want it as hard as I did when I first started? No, not quite. I had embers of anger and frustration left, not the roaring flame.

"What kind of masking?" I asked, if only to gain some time to think.

Markham, I imagined, caught on, but he leaned his elbows on his desk all the same to answer. "We have some... sympathetic people who work with or around the bullies and the city's investigators. Sometimes we ask them little favours. A file mislabelled, a page burned by accident, a spill that ruins a report. The pain of dealing with such a large bureaucracy can be leveraged against the bureaucracy itself, at times."

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"How much influence do you have?" I asked.

Markham chuckled. "I'm not the leader of the union, you know? Just this one little branch. In fact, there are others within this city alone, though ours is the biggest. What influence I have comes from three degrees of separation, and usually involves people who are... sympathetic to our cause, despite sometimes being part of the mechanism that makes our cause necessary in the first place."

"Oh," I said with a nod. "Alright. Well, this plan of yours sounds like it will take a while to even get started."

"And it would require some sacrifices on your part," he added.

"Sacrifices?"

Markham tapped the top of his desk. "Your class is distinct and obvious. Strong, certainly, but not something subtle. There are ways of hiding one's class, but those usually come from a class dedicated to that kind of trickery. There are actually very few people who can see past that level of falsification. In any case, if you're not able to pass yourself off as a more... normal-seeming student, then I don't know if you'd be suitable for this job at all."

I stared at him, then laughed. "Yeah, right. Well, it was nice talking to you, Markham, but I'd rather waste my time elsewhere."

"No longer interested?"

"Not if it means essentially giving up every advantage I have. I can make more than a shilling a week with my current class, and dropping it for something new wouldn't help me in the long run, I don't think, especially if I'll just be replacing it with something 'normal.' So no, I'm afraid that I'm no longer interested."

He shrugged. "Very well. Do tell me if you change your mind though. On that note, I appreciate your time, but I do have more work to tackle. You wouldn't imagine how busy things are becoming."

"Yeah, thanks," I said.

And with that I eased my way out of his office.

Surprisingly, someone was waiting for me just outside the office area.

"Hey, if it isn't my favourite psychopath," Dregs said.

I grinned. "And my favourite accomplice," I replied. "How are you, Dregs?"

"I'd be better if you didn't incriminate me," he grumped.

"And I'd be better if you didn't accuse me of psychopathy, but here we are."

"You're getting snarkier as you age. I think I liked it better when you were a wide-eyed baby killer who went around pretending to be innocent," he said.

I shrugged a shoulder, then sniffed, widened my eyes a little, brought my shoulders in, and hunched a little. "Like this?" I asked, voice not too far from tearful.

"Oh, that's beautiful. You should join one of those troupes that do shows on the street," he said.

"I'm not leaving home to join the circus," I said with a grin. "I didn't expect to see you, what are you doing?"

Dregs shrugged, then I accompanied him as he recounted the last couple of days. It seemed as if the riots had pushed the bullies to act, and that in turn meant that some of them had gone too far. He didn't say anything, but I caught on the implication that he had put them in their place.

"What about you?" he asked.

I glanced at him, then around us. The union building was busy, but we were more or less unwatched. "Hey, Markham made me an offer, and... can I bounce it off you?"

"Sure," he said.

So I did, and he ended up frowning by the end. "Never had a job with two years of prep time behind it," he said. "But two years... that's long enough for you to get your second class if you really work on it. Third one's out of the question, of course."

"What's that got to do with it?" I asked.

"Well, you've introduced a few kindly souls to the ground, haven't ya? Bet a pretty copper that you'll get some options that are a little less legal than others. And that means a class that'll let you mess with anything that tries to get your name and numbers out of you."

That... was maybe a fantastic idea.

***