Division One?
Alliance Military?
The words make absolutely no sense to Xuan Shang - he's never heard of an Alliance Military before, though his middle brother, Xuan Ye Ran, is in the national military. But what he does find familiar is the matte black material of Beris Whyte's uniform. He recognizes it as the new military-grade kevlar that Ye Ran had once mentioned over dinner, which is thinner and much more flexible, but horrifically expensive. Coupled with the sense of pride and lingering expectation in the tone of her voice, he figures out how to respond.
His eyebrows arch in a faint expression of surprise and awe, not overdone enough to seem fake, but more like a deep excitement that had been forcibly repressed.
"I didn't expect to meet an elite here," he says. "How did you find me?"
Beris Whyte's look of smug satisfaction sours as she wrinkles her nose.
"I was coming in to check on my cute little subjects and found them missing. It didn't take much to put things together and find out where they went, considering how much those brats were screeching. Really, I expected more out of... well. They will be punished, you can be sure of that." Before Xuan Shang can even think of feeling touched, she mutters under her breath, "They couldn't even handle two Walkers? They're going to be in for a world of pain - cough, I mean, remedial lessons."
Thus saying, she takes a few steps forward and crouches onto her haunches in front of the corpse. She nudges it onto its back, revealing the grotesquely branded forehead and the slowly decaying flesh.
"What... is that?"
"Hmm? Have you never seen a..." she breaks off and makes a quiet sound of comprehension. "Oh yes, I forgot you were a civilian. You wouldn't have gone beyond the Walls before. Well, my inquisitive little student, come closer. He won't bite, heh." Xuan Shang stares flatly at her until she clears her throat and continues. "This is a Walker, one of the four main types of undead. The other three are Crawlers, Amphibians, and Mutants."
Undead?
His mind conjures up all of the zombie movies he's seen before, with plenty of stiff, ambling corpses, dramatic wailing, robbing, and explosions. That was nothing like this.
"They're smarter than I expected," he says.
Beris Whyte gives him a long, scrutinizing look.
"You're right. The ZVR virus doesn't necessarily destroy higher brain function. It only rewires it so that individuals believe they are doing what they want to, when it's really what the virus wants them to do in order to spread throughout the population. It is a mixture of baser, animalistic instincts with human intellect. Quite fascinating, yes?"
He would have rather used horrifying to describe it, but he forces a smile on his face and agrees, "Yes."
"So, what do you think?"
She's staring at him with an expectant expression.
"Are you ready to come to the Academy with me?"
"Thank you, but I need to go - "
"Oh yes, I forgot to mention," she interrupts in a loud voice, overpowering his words with her own. "Since you have come into contact with large quantities of undead fluids, there's a chance you have been contaminated with the ZVR virus. You'll need to be under military surveillance for one - I mean, four weeks."
Black lines appear over his face.
"Wait, I - mmph - "
She hastily slaps her hand over his mouth.
"The Academy is technically five years, but you could go into Year Three without a problem. Afterwards, you could work for the military or institute and have lots of subjects to disse - err, contribute to the progress of humanity!"
She turns a blind ear to his protests and begins dragging him out of the woods. Trying to break free from her grasp is an impossible task, and all he can do is stumble after her to prevent his arm from being dislocated. But as the adrenaline in his blood fades, his limbs become heavy and meld with the thick black curtain falling over his eyes. At first, Beris Whyte waits with patience every few steps, but soon she slings one arm beneath his knees and the other over his shoulders. The world lurches.
Red faced and gasping for breath, Xuan Shang finds himself being carried like a sack of potatoes on someone's shoulders, a shapely rear swaying at almost eye-level with each step. He squeezes his eyes shut. Perhaps others would feel attraction or interest at the sight, but all he feels is a sense of profound irritation and a looming migraine. She pats the back of his knee in appeasement.
"Rest now," she says. "You'll be at your new home soon enough."
'I'd rather spend a month in solitary confinement...'
With that final thought, he succumbs to the darkness.
.
.
.
" - should ... awake in ... minutes ... pupils are reactive and blood pressure is normalizing. Beris, please step away from the bed."
A male voice, steady but threaded with exasperation, emanates close to Xuan Shang's ear.
"Taking too long..." Beris Whyte complains. "I could lose half the blood in my body and still be able to kill a legion of undead."
Xuan Shang opens his eyes slowly, blinking at the ceiling before turning towards the source of the commotion.
Beris Whyte is sitting on the edge of the bed next to him, one leg crossed over the other, emphasizing her shapely figure. Her arms are crossed over her chest in dissatisfaction as she stares intently at an Asian man, who wears a doctor's coat and has a stethoscope hung around his neck. He is facing the floor-to-ceiling windows on the other side of the hospital ward, the morning light falling gently onto his face.
"Before your enhancements, you cried like a baby over a paper cut."
"Zhan Yan, you bastard! Why do you always bring that up!"
Evidently, Beris Whyte did not appreciate that. She grabs the clipboard hanging on the edge of Xuan Shang's bed and hurls it with unerring accuracy at Zhan Yan, the wood flipping side over side fast enough that it looks almost like a spinning blade. But without even looking up from his notes, he reaches out a hand and pinches it between his forefinger and thumb, stopping it dead in its tracks.
His head tilts up and he meets Xuan Shang's gaze. "You're awake," he says in pleasant surprise. As he walks closer, he reaches out with the clipboard and clobbers Beris Whyte over the head. "How are you feeling?"
Xuan Shang looks at Beris Whyte, who is rubbing her reddened forehead with a whine, and Zhan Yan, whose mild, warm smile makes him appear disarmingly gentle. The gold-rimmed glasses resting on his nose give him a scholarly look, but from the ease with which he dealt with Beris Whyte and the sleek, hidden lines of muscle beneath his neatly ironed clothing, Xuan Shang knows that he is not someone easily dealt with, either.
"Like I got run over by a truck."
"Yes, Beris does have that effect on people," Zhan Yan says with an amused smile. "My condolences for getting conscripted."
Beris Whyte grumbles a bit more before hopping onto her feet with a small bounce. She tosses a bundle of cloth into his lap.
"All right, now that you're up, get dressed. You have class in ten minutes."
Zhan Yan looks at him with sympathy.
"It's easier to do as she demands. She'll force you into it anyways."
"You seem to know each other well..."
Beris Whyte slings an arm over Zhan Yan's shoulder, tugging him down so she could smoosh their cheeks together. "We went to the Academy together," she replies, then flicks her wrist at him several times. "Now go on, stop dallying."
Xuan Shang lets himself be shooed from the bed into a narrow changing stall, which is really just a small section of the room partitioned off with curtains with a small, warped mirror hung on the wall. He gets his first good look at his new body.
He has a thin, angular face that is pale in a way that speaks of illness. His eyes, an emerald green, are hidden beneath long eyelashes and framed by strong, youthful eyebrows. Raven black hair curls gently behind his ears. But when Xuan Shang lets his face falls into its normal expression, his eyes darken and his mouth forms an unyielding line, giving him a surly and unapproachable air.
His figure is quite tall but thin, the bandages wrapped around his torso and ending only at his throat and wrists giving him a bit of false definition. He frowns and pinches his arm. There is none of the strong muscle that he is used to.
"What's taking so long?" Beris Whyte calls from outside.
Xuan Shang quickly slips on the clothing, fearing that she would just push open the curtains and brazenly walk in. The material is tight over his bandages and make his wounds sting. The uniform is very similar to Cross' - a white button down shirt tucked into high-waisted black trousers and covered by a black blazer with a phoenix emblem embroidered over the breast pocket. His trousers are tucked into a set of black boots. Overall, it gives off a neat, military feeling.
As he pushes open the curtains, Zhan Yan looks him over with a clinical eye. He nods.
"Very good. You'll want to refrain from using your hands too much over the next few days. I had to pull a lot of splinters out of there, so it will hurt."
Xuan Shang bow his head at the doctor.
"Thank you."
"You're welcome to come to me if you encounter any problems, be they medical or..." he glances at Beris Whyte, "...or otherwise."
"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?!" Her fists arch onto her hips and she puffs up in offense.
"It means I'm offering my support your protege. Isn't that what friends do?"
"Hmph. That's more like it. Well then, come on, kid."
Xuan Shang falls into step next to her. For a few minutes, the sound of their boots against polished linoleum is the only noise in the silent corridors. There are no students around. Class must have already started.
In some ways, it's not so bad to be here. An Academy would be a good place to learn more about this new environment and would make for a more interesting dream. Plus, he doesn't have any idea who his family is, who his friends are, or where he even lives. It is better to be in a completely new setting to avoid leaking out the fact that he is some kind of imposter.
Beris Whyte stops in front of a nondescript door. The faint sound of a professor's voice droning on is cut off when she slams her palm against the door several times, then turns the knob and saunters in without waiting for a reply. Xuan Shang squares his shoulders and follows her in.
"Yo, Vanis."
Vanis is a middle-aged man with a slightly receding hairline. He is of average height but with a broad, stocky build. At the sound of Beris Whyte's cheerful greeting, he closes his eyes tiredly. Xuan Shang suddenly feels a sense of connection with him.
"Lieutenant-Commander Whyte," he says with resignation.
"Aw, don't be like that, Vanny. Anyways, this is your new student, take good care of him."
Beris Whyte turns around and prods Xuan Shang into the front amidst dozens of stares - curious, jealous, awed - pats his shoulder with an ominous reminder that she'll be watching, and leaves just as swiftly as she entered.
There is silence for a few more moments, before pandemonium breaks out through the room.
"One of the National Pillars!!"
"My goddess - "
"She's so gorgeous -"
"One of the strongest women in Haven - "
"Alright, alright, enough," Professor Vanis shouts and waves his hands over the din. "Settle down, now. " As they begin to quiet, he turns to Xuan Shang, "Our new student, why don't you introduce yourself?"
'I don't even know my first name...'
Xuan Shang's lips twitch, but he steps forward and gives a slight bow.
"My name is Milton," he says, and looks up with a bright, sunny smile, his eyes curving into crescents. He can hear some of the girls giggle slightly under their breaths, looking towards him with interest, while some of the boys scowl darkly. "Please take care of me."
"Excellent, Cadet Milton. Take a seat."
Xuan Shang scans the room. The classroom is relatively small and is made of concrete painted a pale shade of green. Small, square windows are cut into the far side of the room, each only slightly larger than his head, and are reinforced with metal crossbars. If he didn't know any better, he would have thought that this was a prison.
Fifteen double desks are lined up in three rows of five. The middle and far right desk at the very back of the room are empty. He walks through the aisle amidst the eyes of the entire class and sits in the very corner, crossing his arms over the desk and pillowing his chin over it.
He had thought long and hard about what kind of persona he should portray - the original's gloom or a more approachable air, and ultimately decided with the latter. Making friends to gain more information is never a bad thing. But his face is unaccustomed to smiling for so long, and by sitting at the back, there would be fewer eyes on him.
The professor paces in the front of the room.
"Welcome to Third Year. You are now considered upper-year students and are expected to behave as such, especially with your placement exams coming up at the end of the year. Today, we will be covering a general review of the foundational knowledge from the last two years. Can anyone give me a summary of the ZVR virus? Yes, Anderson."
Anderson is a skinny, eager-looking boy that sits straight up and answers, "Yes, sir! Eight years ago, there was an outbreak of an unknown rhabdovirus. We called it ZVR-03. At first, it didn't seem very serious at all - just a cough and a fever… but in some people, there were neurological symptoms as well. Delirium. Hallucinations. Aggression. We quarantined those individuals, but then other people started showing those symptoms, people who had never contracted ZVR, or had recovered from it months ago. It could spread by bites or just bodily fluids. After a year, we were close to finding a vaccine... but then civilization collapsed. The borders of countries and cities disintegrated with the fabric of societal order."
"Very good. What is the purpose of Base Haven? Stevens."
Stevens has his feet up on the desk and is leaning back on the back legs of his chair. He loudly complains, "Why are we going through this? Even a baby would know the answers to your - ow!"
A piece of chalk flies through the air, leaving a trail of white powder, and solidly clobbers him on the side of his face. A vein in the professor's temple ticks.
"Answer the question."
Stevens rubs his reddening cheek and grudgingly says, "Base Haven was built a few months after the cities fell. It is the largest sanctuary for survivors on this continent. It also holds the Alliance Military headquarters and Institute of Sciences. This Academy trains cadets for both."
Xuan Shang feigns an expression of bored disinterest as he listens, but his mind is whirling. This dream has a lot of elements that are startlingly realistic.
For one, Xuan Feng had mentioned something about the spread of a new, bizarre virus just a few days ago during dinner.
For another, the Institute of Sciences is the place where he used to work as an intern.
This is a world that has been ravaged by the zombie apocalypse until it had become something barely recognizable, yet contains familiar aspects all the same.
As Xuan Shang listens to the back and forth between the professor and students, his eyes slowly slip shut, the tension in his shoulders relaxing. The fatigue of last night, coupled with his worn and wounded body, lulls him into a stupor. The academic setting is one he is familiar with - one that he cannot escape even in a dream, apparently.
Until Professor Vanis loudly says, "Perhaps our new student can answer this one."
Xuan Shang's eyes open halfway, but he does not lift up his head. His voice contains a pleasant hoarseness.
"I'm sorry, Professor, could you repeat the question?"
"What is one potential pathophysiological mechanism by which the ZVR virus can spread through the body?"
...weren't they just going over review?
When did it get to something this complicated?
Some of the boys begin snickering. They know he's not going to know the answer, and that Professor Vanis likely only asked him in punishment for sleeping during class.
But they don't know that Xuan Shang was once the best intern in the Institute of Sciences. This can be considered a piece of cake to him.
He gathers the information he knows and mulls over a response.
"We know that the ZVR virus can spread through bites or bodily fluids, and that it causes neuropsychiatric symptoms, such as aggression and hallucination." This is the information that Anderson had provided. Professor Vanis nods, motioning for him to continue. "In that case, the virus needs to spread from the point of entry to the brain. It could do so through retrograde neuronal transport."
Professor Vanis looks surprised at his conclusion, then pleased, but ultimately shakes his head.
"An excellent analysis, Cadet Milton, but that is not the most accepted theory. We believe that it spreads through the blood."
"But then it would be stopped by the blood-brain barrier," Xuan Shang returns calmly, "due to the impermeability of capillaries in that region, it is very unlikely that the ZVR virus could adapt to bind to one of the receptors on the barrier to pass through. Since all nerves lead to the brain, the virus could infect peripheral nerves in the arms, legs, or torso, and use those as a highway to get to the brain."
"Did Lieutenant-Commander Whyte tell you about this?"
"No."
"It is one of her new theories."
Xuan Shang blinks, genuinely surprised. "Oh."
The professor falls into silence, a complicated expression on his face. Finally, he sighs and says, "Truly worthy of being her only apprentice. Her luck is good as always..."
Xuan Shang puts his head back down and closes his eyes to the sound of renewed murmurs, some in awe, others in irritation. The professor doesn't call on him again for the rest of class, but he isn't destined to be able to sleep today.
Because just after the professor dismisses the class, amidst the bustle of students leaving their seats and heading to the next room, a pair of hands slam down on either side of Xuan Shang's arms. He opens his eyes to see a face just a few scant centimeters away, his expression twisted by jealousy and disgust. Each of his hands are as big as Xuan Shang's face, and his fingers twitch as though imagining how it feels to grab hold of his head and slam it against the desk.
"Can I help you?" he says drolly, as if not recognizing the threat in the other student's eyes.
"What makes you worthy of Lieutenant-Commander Whyte's attention?" he spits.
'That's what I'd like to know too.'
"You'll have to ask her."
The boy bares his teeth in aggression. "Oh, you think you're really something, huh? Finding time to show off in class. Well, I'll tell you something - I'm not fooled by your little play. You must've practiced long and hard to prepare that farce of an answer."
"Believe what you will."
Xuan Shang turns around to leave, but a meaty hand clamps over his shoulder and throws him back into his seat.
"I'm not done with you yet, dead meat."
Xuan Shang sighs and leans back in his chair with a king's careless grandeur. He crosses his long legs in front of him and rests his chin on one of his hands, eyes lowering to half mast in disinterest.
"Then you better get talking."
Angry words tangle on the boy's tongue, fighting each other to get out until he swallows them out and says, each syllable dripping with murderous intent, "Today. After class. You and me."
Did Beris Whyte know about her fanboys?
She could have had the decency to warn him about them first.
A vengeful expression appears over the fanboy's face, as though he's already imagining Xuan Shang with his face beaten bloody and his neck crushed. He doesn't blame him for the misconception, considering the boy is built like a bull and carries himself with the same kind of demeanor - and fortunately for Xuan Shang, the brains of one as well.
"Unless you're too scared of - "
"Alright."
" - me to accept, which I - wait, what?"
Under the eyes of many, Xuan Shang takes his time to stand up straight, face to face with the boy, a sharp light in his eyes and a vague, mocking smile playing at his lips.
"I'll take that challenge."