Page 28 of Souls of Steel
Brendan and Knox were waiting outside, just like they’d said. “I didn’t take too long, did I?” I asked.
“Not at all,” Brendan replied automatically. I wanted to kick myself, because what else could he have said that wouldn’t be rude?
I couldn’t read him at all and had no idea what he thought about me. But throughout this past week, I’d learned he had an aversion to poor manners. He’d always been perfectly polite with me, unlike his companions. And while I appreciated that, it also made me uneasy. Polite masks always tended to conceal a lot of secrets.
But for now, he was helping me, so even if he had a hidden agenda, I’d accept his assistance. I’d worry about the rest when I wasn’t in danger of losing my life and sanity because of the other men at this damn school.
The mess hall was, naturally, the place where all these people met up, staff and students alike. When the three of us walked in, the noisy room turned dead silent. Hundreds of eyes zeroed in on me and I wished I could’ve gone back to the hangars and eaten rations with the far friendlier chimeras.
Since that wasn’t possible, I kept walking. Knox and Brendan flanked me, so no one would dare to try anything.
Maybe my mother had been right, I thought with a distant dose of hysteria. Maybe I was supposed to earn the favor of the members of my unit, so that I could keep myself safe from everyone else.
August and Pollux waved at us from a table. Apparently, they’d arrived sooner and had secured us all meals. “Hey, guys,” August greeted us with a small smile. “Mission accomplished. We grabbed some of the meat patties that aren’t artificial.”
“Thank Tartarus,” Knox mumbled. “If I had to eat anything created in a lab, I would’ve killed someone today.”
He sat next to August, in front of a large dish of something that looked like steamed beef. I eyed it warily, suspecting it was very different from the food we had at home.
Brendan took the seat on Knox’s other side and Pollux patted the spot next to him. “Ms. Renard, we got something for you too. We didn’t know what you liked, so we guessed and grabbed a variety.”
“Thank you,” I replied. “And please, call me Selene. There’s no point in staying so formal if we’re in the same unit together.”
I wriggled onto the steel bench, trying and utterly failing to recognize the food on my tray. It looked like I’d have to trust their judgment on this one, because there was no way to tell if I’d like or hate anything.
The only familiar item was the canister of milk—and that was just because it said ‘milk’ on it. Relieved, I started with that. “I didn’t realize you have milk available at the academy.”
“The milk is artificial, but the flavor isn’t too bad,” August replied. “It’s better than the other available drinks anyway. I do not recommend the coffee. It’s poison, no matter what Knox says.”
“Any tea?” I asked as I took a sip of my milk.
Pollux chuckled and shook his head. “No way. Tea is a luxury product. We only get it when we’re at home, never at the academy.”
His words reminded me of the differences between our upbringings. As a child and a daughter of the High Priestess of Gaia, I’d never lacked real meals. My mother had grown trees with her own hands, made sure the cattle we owned were healthy, checked the eggs for lingering radiation. Tea was one of the few things that had always been available, even in the leanest years. But here, there were no trees, no animals, only metal.
Still, the rations I’d been eating for the past week hadn’t been great either, so I swallowed the milk without protesting. It tasted more like impure flavored water to me. I half-expected sensors to start screaming ‘radiation alert’. If this wasn’t too bad, I couldn’t imagine how much worse everything else would be.
As it turned out, not all of it was awful. I found I liked the square brown cube which Brendan identified as a pea mix. I didn’t have as much meat on my tray as Knox, but I ate all of it, since it seemed organic too.
On the bright side, it was very filling, so I didn’t need to force myself through a long meal. Even if I’d been starving, the food fixed my problem. Obviously, the meals were meant to be practical, not enjoyable.
My companions devoured everything on their plates, with Knox and August finishing first. Pollux and Brendan seemed to eat a little more slowly, and yet, before I knew it, their food was all gone.
By the time we were done, the mess hall was starting to empty. I ignored the looks the other students kept throwing my way, feeling a little more ready to start my day.
In fact, I looked forward to it. The day before had gone poorly, but I did have some knowledge of chimera piloting, so I wouldn’t suck at it as much as I had at tachyon manipulation. And if nothing else, Brendan, Knox, August, and Pollux were unlikely to assault me in the middle of a lesson.
We left the mess hall together, in silence. Brendan had pulled out the tablet and was studying it again. He walked ahead of our group, with Knox by his side. I was right behind them and August and Pollux took the back row, completing our formation.
It was embarrassing to be considered so vulnerable. I didn’t want to be this person, to always be deemed weak and breakable. I could stand on my own two feet and prove to everyone here that I deserved to be chosen as Sphinx’s tamer. How was I going to do that if I had to rely on other people for the smallest things?
“You’ll do fine,”Sphinx assured me.“Just give yourself a little time. It’s wise to take them up on what they offer, until you’re a little more settled in, at least. After that, it’ll be easy enough to rid yourself of them.”
“Are you saying that I should use them for their power and discard them?”I asked in disbelief.“But we all belong to the same unit.”
“My dear Selene, you’re still much too kind. I won’t lie. It’s part of why I chose you. But I need you to remember one important thing. If you want to survive at Chimera Academy, your soul needs to be made of steel.”
A shiver coursed down my spine at her warning. A soul of steel. Why did I get the feeling that those words were more than a metaphor?
