“I don’t know, “ I wonder aloud, sliding back into the hard leather chair. “I mean babies are mostly gross, but...also kind of ace.”

“Ace? ” Hotako asks raising his eyebrows slightly.

“I mean, you know, they’re all whiny and helpless, but they like come out with the instinct to survive and shit--.”

The rose gold band wrapped around my wrist emits two small shock that feels like a slap on the wrist. I’d forgotten I was wearing a behavior minder now that I was back in the oppressive black hole that was Arkham Academy.

“Fuck!” I hiss.

The minder shocks me again a little bit harder. Hotako folds his arms and and gives me his subtle ‘you should know better’ look from across his giant ass wooden desk. I hated the minder, but students couldn’t get it off until they were juniors and that’s assuming Hotako even lets me take it off.

“Anyway, I guess it’ll be cool to have a baby around,” I decide. “I mean until he gets turned into an insane bloodthirsty Rayne Jr…. When are you going to go see the baby ?”

Hotako looks slightly taken back by the question. Almost looks like he wasn’t expecting it.

Which is new for him.

He usually anticipates everything I’m about to say and has a long bullshit response ready.

“I don’t know if I will,” he says. “My place is more here.”

“But you’re the baby's only Uncle,” I say giving up any chance of being comfortable in the chair and sitting up. “Aren’t you supposed to tell him embarrassing stories about growing up with Rayne ? ”

Hotako shakes his head thoughtfully.

“Rayne is 7 years older than me...we had separate lives from pretty early on,” he explains. “I know my place in the world and he knows his. With that nature of our work it’s better we keep things as they are.”

“You mean where practically nobody even knows you exist ?”

I stare at him to see if I get another reaction but he seems so calm about it. He’s calm about everything. I hope I’m around when he finally snaps. Hell, I’ll probably be the cause of it.

“Let’s talk about your success this year,” Hotako changes the subject, projecting my class schedule from his tablet. “I know you struggled  last year because you came in the middle of the semester but this year you’ll be on the same page as the rest of your classmates. You’ll need to start  thinking about your 10th grade final project. How were your first week of classes?”

“Fine. Boring. Nonsense,” I tell him. “Why did you schedule  me in Philosophy Lecture and 14th Century Literature ? I should be in International Relations or engineering or a class where I can get skills I can use when I join the cartel--”

The minder shocks me so hard this time that I feel it in my bones. I groan. The minders only went off if we were out of bounds, swore, or were late and they almost never shocked that bad.  

Unless a professor manually activated it.

Cartel. Right. To Hotako that was a fucking swear word.

As far as anyone on campus (and their parents) were considered Hotako’s older  brother was just the CEO of the Mojave Blade Company and I was just the rebellious son of one of the technicians who was lucky enough to be admitted to the exclusive Arkham Academy.

No assassins or cartels to see here.

“Oh, come on,” I say shaking out the pain my wrist “I know this school is a cover. It has to be. I mean my homeroom alone is full of high value hostages--”

The minder shocks me again.

An alert blares  on Hotako’s tablet and I see my picture show up on his screen with a flashing white light. He takes my hand and presses it to the screen and the tablet goes silent.

If a student  got shocked too many times in a certain period of time their counselor was alerted to provide “comprehensive behavior intervention” which basically meant get off your ass and do something.

I had the special  privilege of having the headmaster as my counselor.

“Arkham Academy is not a cover,” Hotako says sternly and then goes into lecture mode. “It is the product  of years of old fashioned hard work to build an institution of academic intensity that is safe and welcoming and separate from corruption. I’ve worked hard to keep it legitimate--”

“Until me,” I remind him in a sing song voice.

Hotako gives me a withering look.

“You’re a smart boy, Luce. I know you can earn your place here. This semester I want you to work on having a better attitude with the other students and making friends---”

“I have to make friends ?  I have to have a better attitude ?,” I balk. “None of these assh--other students want to be my friend. They’re all just  rich bullies whose parents think they’re too precious to be in the Sprawl and too special to belong in Ft. Perch.”

“You’re not so different.” Hotako reminds me.  “Your mother wants you to have a better life and she’s using her connections to give you that. Don’t waste that opportunity.”

I respond with  an eye roll and I’m surprised I don’t get a small shock.

It’s cold as hell when I leave Hotako’s office in Administrative Hall.  I’d spent most of summer holiday in the heat of the Sprawl and I’m not used to the chill of the air up here. I shrug on the butt ugly burnt orange  Arkham Academy blazer and start walking towards the dining hall.

Arkham Academy was built was on 8 acres of green  neoluddite land, adding to the bucolic other-worldliness of it. Admin Hall was like most of the other buildings on campus, tall, gray brick and slightly Gothic with just enough modern design to look like it's from this century.