LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

I,” said F’Thr. “But come, we need to show Nuri where all the cool stuff is. Before dinner.”

      Before she even had a chance to settle, Opna and F’Thr bustled off with her, showing her where the bathrooms, laundry and dining hall were.

      “We’re like a bad joke,” Opna said. “A J’Veth, a Heran and a girl of undetermined species walk into a dining hall …”

      Nuri was grateful for their attention. As they walked the passages, she drew many curious stares and whispers.

      “Who is she?”

      “What is she?”

      New-girl syndrome. Ugh. This was a first for her – usually she was the one hazing new recruits in the Den.

      During supper, they had their own table, which according to Byron was theirs because no one else wanted it. Not the greatest of tables, it was closest to the main doors, which constantly slid open and shut as fellow recruits came and went, and by some trick of the architecture meant that they were seated in a constant draught.

      Stasja turned pointedly from Nuri and engaged Byron in one-sided, overly animated conversation that he gave the appearance of enduring rather than engaging with. When she did face the others, she refused to even glance at Nuri. Ah well.

      A handful recruits came to them during supper, to make introductions, but by that stage exhaustion had crept up on Nuri and she had trouble remembering names. Her AR offered helpful prompts, but it still exhausted her to have the little comments popping up while she was talking to people, so she kept the apps minimised.

      It took all her effort to eat, and Mei was the one who hustled her upstairs shortly after dessert.

      “You look like you’re going to fall asleep in your food,” she said to Nuri.

      “Thanks. Yeah, you’re probably right. Is Stasja always so rude?”

      Mei shrugged. “It takes some time for her to warm to people.”

      Nuri wasn’t so certain. She’d seen Stasja’s type at the Den. They usually meant trouble, and this time she didn’t have Vadith to intervene on her behalf. As much as he was an irritating boss, he wouldn’t tolerate anyone picking on Nuri in case she ended up “off her game”, as he put it. Which only resulted in subtler jibes at her from jealous pack members. It didn’t help that she’d mostly kept to herself in the barrens. Maybe now she should reach out.

      After her shower, Nuri fell so deeply asleep, she didn’t wake when the others returned to the dorm. She didn’t even dream.

      * * *

      Byron’s alarm went off at 5am.

      “Oh geez,” Opna mumbled. “Can’t we snooze?”

      “No. Everybody up.” Byron’s tone was brisk. Drill sergeant.

      Nuri buried herself deeper into the downy depths of her bed, but then the lights switched on bright, and Byron was clapping his hands.

      “Up, up, up! Everybody up! We have dorm inspection at six. Go get ready so we can give everything a once-over before the facilitators get here. I won’t have a repeat of yesterday.”

      Nuri went through the motions, getting dressed in a daze, and then struggled with her bed. She’d thought she’d done a good job until Byron came over and plucked off her duvet cover.

      “Are these fen-mole burrows in your sheets?” he groused. “Opna already lost us credits with his burrows from last inspection. So he can show you how to do it better.”

      Opna groaned and came over. “Who died and made you a dictator, Byron?”

      Byron rolled his eyes, then went to help Stasja, who evidently didn’t need to put in half the effort everyone else did.

      By the time the facilitators came to inspect their dorm, the place was tidier than any room Nuri had ever been in. Yet they found fault – there was dust on the tops of the window lintels. F’Thr’s shoes had gum stuck under the soles. Nuri’s clothing wasn’t folded crisply enough. They lost three credit points, which made Byron glower at them all the way out to the grounds.

      No breakfast till they’d run a circuit. In the dark. Which was okay for Nuri – she could see just fine – but it was still freezing. Her breath misted before her face, and her fingers felt like they were falling off, despite her sticking her hands under her armpits. But it felt so good to move again, and she even showed off a little by running along the top of a fence on the side near the stands. This earned her a few cheers.

      Their route didn’t only encompass the sports fields and buildings, but an entire forest with a lake at the northern end. The cruddy thing about the lakeshore was that the fens crept in underneath the walls here, so those wonderful white running shoes they’d worked so hard to clean before inspection were brown with muck by the time they all plodded back to the dining hall for breakfast.

      At least the food was plentiful, and they were allowed seconds – an unheard-of luxury in the Den, where the littlies often had to scrounge for the leftovers once the older pack had had their fill. Stasja complained about the breakfast. Of course she did. And she screwed up her perfect little face and pursed her lips until they looked like a rat’s arse.

      Nuri said nothing, just shoved another mouthful of egg – real egg, not the vat-grown stuff she occasionally ate – into her mouth and swallowed it nearly without chewing. Even if she failed the tests and ended up in Fadhil’s household scrubbing floors forever, she’d at least have tasted good food.

      After breakfast, they cleaned up and got ready for their lessons. Nuri wriggled in mortification at the thought. Not all the Chosen were the same age, nor were they at the same point in their education. Nuri was barely able to read, and her ability to use the AR was next to non-existent – she’d need much more practice before she was as fluent as the others. She soon found out that this meant she’d been slotted into the D-stream or “special” class. Even the VR headsets gave her headaches, so she ended up using a flatscreen tablet of all things, as she navigated modules aimed at basic numeracy, literacy and, ugh, history and geography.

      The facilitator was a near-emaciated human by the name of Miss Pearl. Everyone had to call her “miss” during class or she wouldn’t talk to you, and she was strict. No talking. No sleeping. No fooling around on the intranet. Not that the sites they could access were even remotely exciting.

      The cadaverous Miss Pearl kept checking Nuri’s results, making a disappointed tutting sound before directing her to further educational films and documentaries to watch and more tests to do, until Nuri’s head was overfull with sights and sounds and symbols and things for which she didn’t have the proper terms.

      This went on until lunch time, when Nuri’s eyes were so scratchy, she was half asleep. She was ridiculously glad to be out and away from those stuffy classrooms – stepping into the corridor with the dozens of other recruits was a refreshing slap in the face.

      What followed after lunch was much, much better.

      Combat training. Athletics. Basic weapons proficiency. These were classes they had with Raphel.

      This was all stuff she was already good at, which made it easier for her to deal with the sniggers from the Nasty Girls (as F’Thr called them) – Stasja’s other friends, who were, according to Stasja, so much cooler than her own squad. Nuri, despite being smaller than most, could run faster, climb higher and jump further than the others. Granted, as Raphel said, she didn’t have the stamina for the longer distances, but that would come with time.

      Avatars needed to be prepared for any situation, Raphel stated.

      “You may be required to negotiate for a hostage’s release,” said Raphel. “Or perhaps act as a judge in a territorial dispute that affects your client’s trade. You may have to fight your way out of a barroom brawl. The point is, you never know where star-jumper business will lead you.”

      “It

Скачать книгу