Chapter Thirteen

Amber ambled out of her room and wandered around the shared dorm room for a little while before she found a box of plain cereal and a carton of milk in the mini-fridge. She chewed away while looking out the window. Her dorm was only on the second floor, but that still afforded a nice view of the soccer field and some of the old buildings of the academy. The walls looked tall and stately from the inside.

Still surrounded by walls. Though, I guess I might be able to vault them now?

The door to the hallway opened and Amber turned to see Morgan walk in. She was impeccably dressed and carrying a satchel that bounced off her hip. “Hey,” Amber said. It was the best she could muster. It’s like, nine. When did she leave?

“Hello,” Morgan said as she shut the door. She eyed Amber up and down. “Are you wearing your uniform blouse?”

Amber looked down. She was wearing her blouse, and some underthings too. “Don’t have PJs,” she said.

“Ah, right,” Morgan said. “Well, we can fix that later. It might take a while for you to get your Agarthan money.”

“I guess having the administration building explode would do that,” Amber said.

Morgan nodded and moved over to the table. She set her bag down, opened it, then paused as she was about to reach in. Amber could feel the taller girl eyeing her up. “You’re right. But it’s fine. I have some extra from last year. We can at least get you some sleeping clothes. And as much as I appreciate regulation clothes, the standard bras are awful.”

Amber chuckled. “So it’s not just me?” she asked.

Morgan smiled, if only faintly. “You hear people complain about them all the time. There’s a conspiracy that it’s to get people to check out the shopping centre more often.”

“They sell that kind of thing?” Amber asked.

“They sell everything,” Morgan said. “Decent prices too. Something about currency exchange and branding. I never paid it much attention.”

“Alright,” Amber said before she ate another spoonful of cereal. “Um, is this yours?” she asked, pointing to the bowl with her spoon.

“It’s fine,” Morgan said. “Just tell me if we run out.”

Amber nodded. She’s a bit cold, but she’s nice.

Morgan pulled out a couple of file folders from her bag, then set them on the table before tossing the bag to the couch. Amber knew it wasn’t any of her business, but she couldn’t help but look at the files as Morgan opened them.

They were profiles. The image of a girl on the top left, then their information below that. Morgan noticed her looking. “These are girls that went MIA,” she said.

“MIA? Uh, that’s Missing in Action?”

“Yes,” Morgan said. She spread out the sheets, eight of them in a two-by-four grid. “It happens.”

“Often?” Amber asked.

Morgan wiggled her hand in a ‘maybe’ gesture. “Our line of work involves a lot of risk. We fight monsters that would give normal people nightmares. Sometimes a magical doesn’t come back. It doesn’t happen too often, especially not in the first year teams. But it does happen. Fatality rate for active girls is just shy of one-percent per year. MIA is half that.”

“And things like crippling injuries?” Amber asked.

“Magical healing. Even the worse injuries only take a few months to repair.”

“Okay,” Amber said. “Setting all that aside. Why do you have these?”

“Do you know how many pink-haired girls attend the academy?” Morgan asked.

“No?” Amber said. “Well, at least one, I guess.”

Morgan hummed. “No, none. We had one last year, dyed-pink hair, but she graduated, and was accounted for from what I heard. So that leaves no pink-haired girls. Everyone with pink bangs or highlights was questioned, and they all had alibis.”

“Oh,” Amber said. “So, uh, maybe it was a girl from somewhere else?”

Morgan shrugged. “Maybe. I have my own suspicions though.” She tapped a page. “This girl could create explosive blasts.” She moved to another. “Shapeshifter.” She tapped yet another. “Illusionist focused on self-illusions.”

“You think the pink-haired girl might be one of these?” Amber asked.

“Maybe,” Morgan said. “Someone had to be the pink-haired girl. The administration seems to have decided that you were tricked, but I think it might be something else.”

“They what?” Amber asked.

Morgan grabbed some of the sheets and stacked them to the side. “You’re new, inexperienced, and haven’t been vetted yet. The Seelie think you’re fine, but the military don’t put a lot of weight behind their opinion.”

“So they think I lied?” Amber asked.

“No, they think you were tricked, or that you were confused,” Morgan said. “Honestly, if I wasn’t there myself, I might be inclined to agree. From their perspective you’re not suspicious, but you’re not exactly the best eye-witness.”

“They didn’t even bring me in for any sort of interrogation,” Amber said.

“Legally, they can’t,” Morgan said. “And you didn’t volunteer yourself for one. Not that you would know that the option even exists.”

“What?” Amber asked. Her breakfast was long forgotten, hunger drowned out by rising indignity.

Morgan gestured for her to calm down. “It’s not a big deal. Just people who aren’t here trying to be logical about things. As far as I can tell they spent the night searching for things and found nothing.”

“You mean there’s not one girl here that can track someone?” Amber asked. “Or travel back in time to see what actually happened?”

“Time travel?” Morgan asked. “That’s asking a bit much.”

Amber worked her jaw. “Yeah, whatever.” she let everything out with a long breath. “So did you find any hints? And why are you looking into it instead of... is there police here?”

“Military Police, and they’re limited in the Academy. Agartha isn’t Earth, so legal matters here are questionable at best. And the Academy considers itself a sort of sovereign nation backed up by its student’s clout. It makes things complicated. But yes, they did investigate, and no, they didn’t find anything conclusive.”

“So a building blew up, and no one knows why?” Amber asked.

Morgan made a dismissive gesture, a slash of her hand to the side. “No, the why is obvious. They blew up a wall that was right next to the server room. The second bomb went off in the filing room where physical copies are kept.”

“So someone’s destroying information,” Amber concluded. “Do they know what?”

“Not yet. It’s going to be hard to piece together, I think,” Morgan said. “I saw a possible lead with these MIA girls, but it’s just a hunch.”

“Right,” Amber said. She brought the folders closer and idly leafed through them. “Where did you get these?” she asked. Neomis Smith, 18, Shapeshifter. She read off the first page. There was a mousey brown-haired girl there with big purple-ish eyes.

Morgan coughed into her closed fist. “I know people.”

“How very suspicious,” Amber said. She leaned back, and stretched her arms way up and back until her back popped. Morgan looked down, then away, and Amber realized that her blouse wasn’t all that long. “Right, things start tomorrow. Which means we have a day to do... anything?”

“Just about,” Morgan said. “We didn’t end up training much yesterday. I can show you a few things, give you a small head-start.”

Amber agreed, then ran off to her room to get changed. She only had what she’d worn the day before, and it was a bit dusty and mussed up from having rolled in the dirt post-explosion. But beggars and choosers.

When Amber came out she found Morgan waiting for her, looking as impeccable as ever. “Ready?”

“Sure,” Amber said. “Do you think we can buy toiletries? I really don’t want to impose since you’re basically buying me stuff, but I’d really like to be able to brush my teeth.”

Morgan chuckled. “No problem. I’ve got some stuff tucked away in my bathroom if you need it too. Pads and I think I have an extra toothbrush if you want.”

“That’d be nice,” Amber said. “Do, uh, we still get periods?”

“You can still get pregnant,” Morgan said. “This one girl found out the hard way last year. Lots of drama.”

Amber snorted. “Typical.” There’s no escaping drama, huh?

“There’s healing magic though, so life isn’t miserable.” Morgan dipped into her room and returned with a toothbrush in an unopened package and a half-squeezed tube of toothpaste. “Here.”

When Amber was done, they left the dorm and headed out towards the gym and the cafetaria. A few magicals were jogging around the edges of the soccer field, running at speeds that would put the best sprinters Amber had met to shame.

The gymnasium was a pair of large buildings, all made of that familiar stone, with some windows high off the ground. Morgan opened the door for Amber, and let her into a wide-open room roughly split in two. One side had weights and treadmills and the sorts of contraptions Amber had seen in plenty of gyms. The other half had mats and gymnastics equipment. A mirror ran across an entire wall to the end.

“Over here,” Morgan said as she kicked off her shoes and placed them in a rack. Amber did the same, then followed Morgan to a changing room by the side.

There were cubicles with digital locks and racks filled with school jackets, pants and skirts. Next to those were sealed packets with shorts, a t-shirt and what looked like a terribly cheap sports bra, all in beige with the school’s blue as trim.

“You can change here. Drop your dirty clothes in that bin over there. Don’t forget to empty your pockets. Lockers work with fingerprints. So use a finger to unlock a new one, dump your stuff, then when you want it later use that same digit,” Morgan explained.

Amber nodded along, then froze up for a moment as Morgan started to change. She hurried and did the same while keeping her eyes on anything but the blonde.

“You mentioned you don’t know how to transform, right?” Morgan asked as she tugged at the cords before her shorts and then tied them in a quick butterfly loop.

“I did it once,” Amber said. “And it wasn’t on purpose.”

Morgan smacked her shoulder. “Come on then, we can practice over on the mats.”

“Because I might fall?” Amber asked. She stretched her calves a bit, bounced on the spot a few times, then jogged after Morgan.

“Maybe,” Morgan said. “It can be disorientating. When you transform you don’t just change clothes. Your power, whatever it is, tends to react a bit faster, and you become physically a bit better. That can throw you off.”

They moved past some boys lifting weights in sync and one girl sprinting all out on a reinforced treadmill.

Morgan settled in front of Amber on a mat and placed her hands on her hips. “Right, most of it is instinct, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Also, it’s never the same for everyone.”

“As long as I don’t need to dance,” Amber said.

Morgan didn’t smile.

“Wait, I need to dance?”

Morgan shrugged. “Some girls do.”

“I thought that was for show,” Amber said. She’d seen magical girls transforming on TV. She always thought the dances were cheesy as hell. Oh please no. “You didn’t do any sort of dance,” Amber said.

“My transformation’s fast,” Morgan said. “And I need to do a flourish for it to work.”

“Morgan, I’m a skinny white girl, the last thing I need is to have people see me dancing.”

Morgan rolled her eyes. “Don’t be that way. Have you seen the way some of our costumes look? I guarantee whatever you have going on isn’t that bad.”

Amber sighed. “Fine. So what do I do.”

Morgan grinned. Somehow, on her face, it looked downright threatening. “Start thinking thoughts of love and justice.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

***