Aera sighed. Her voice echoed through the small multipurpose building they'd scheduled for their evening tutoring sessions.
"The Visgolds' aggressiveness doesn't surprise me," Aera said. Hunter felt surprised. That was the first sentence she'd ever spoken to him that wasn't outright hostile or condescending.
"They're a LockeMark family. Old, powerful, and influential, considered an extension of the Locke family itself — but most people won't know about that. It lets them keep a degree of separation between themselves and the Visgolds, who end up responsible for doing a lot of the corporations' dirty work," Aera said as they switched to the next stretch in their warm up routine, "I've met Pippen before, and some people he associates with."
They finished the stretch, and Hunter waited to see if she'd say anything more. When nothing was forthcoming, he wondered if she was waiting for him to say something.
"So what do I do?"
"About what?"
"I mean, there's something wrong with him. He seemed to have it out for me." Hunter said. Aera laughed.
"You're an Oberon, now. There're millions of people who have it out for you. It's something you're going to have to get used to, Hunter. Now, you ready?" She asked, getting ready to start their drills.
"Sure," he said. She tilted her head as she considered him.
It was weird. Had something changed between them in the last couple of days? Was she backing off?
"Look, Barnum's not just about earning Excellence, it's about proving yourself. Not just to the school, but to your peers, your family, and your company. Think of it like a controlled microcosm for the world stage. You understand that LockeMark and Oberon have feuded before, right? I'm not just talking bidding wars, I'm talking actual battlefields."
Hunter couldn't believe what he was hearing.
"Battlefields? Like, actual wars? No way, I would have heard something—"
"—The amount you haven't heard could fill a library, Hunter. The Seats might present a unified front, but behind the scenes, the men and women shaking hands at the televised conferences can order each other's people killed by the dozens. It's rare, but it happens."
"So you're saying that I need to be prepared for more Pippen Visgolds to appear," Hunter said, after taking a second to digest what he'd just heard.
It sounded like a conspiracy theory. But then he considered why corporations would have such well-armed security departments in the first place.
He hadn't given very much about why Sly had been so well decorated.
"I feel like I have a lot to catch up on," Hunter said, preparing to practice his jabs.
Aera declined to comment any further, and Hunter's training began. 50 minutes later, exhausted and hurting, it was his turn to tutor her.
But not before wondering how different these sessions would have gone had he been stronger. He tried to ignore that line of thinking. When he was just supposed to outperform a few snobs in an artisanship class, he felt assured. In fact, as long as he avoided people like Pippen, he didn't feel like he had much to worry about.
His biggest obstacles were going to be time management and getting through his end of the tutoring sessions.
It was just as awkward as he'd thought it would be. They'd spent most of the time figuring out what Aera did and didn't know, and he had to admit that she knew all the basics pretty well.
Not as well as he did, he thought.
He figured he'd just ask her what she wanted to know, and they'd work their way towards that.
"I'm going to earn Excellence," she'd said — and Hunter couldn't help it, he laughed. Her frown spoke of future punishments, and Hunter relented, but what more did he have to fear from her?
"I'm sorry, that won't be possible," Hunter said.
"Oh?" Aera asked, her tone casual, but she clenched one hand into a fist. Hunter held up both hands in surrender.
"It's not possible because that's where I'm earning mine," he said. Aera gave him a skeptical look.
"Look, I understand your deal with my father, but this isn't some yearly competition. This is Barnum. The best of the best are coming here. You'll find that you're up against some very formidable and competitive minds."
Hunter couldn't believe what he was hearing. She was skeptical about how he'd perform, but what was she thinking artisanship was? A matter of grit and determination? In front of Hunter's advantage in this domain, that meant very little.
She thought he was out of his league.
She was even being polite. She was telling him she didn't think he stood much of a chance, but she was only trying to infer it.
She had no idea. Sometimes, Hunter mused, one can forgive ignorance. She didn't know what he could do.
"How much did Trey tell you about my results from the competition?"
Aera shrugged.
"He said that despite your frailty, you managed to distinguish yourself. And that you're the son of his old friend meant that you might have potential as a future Artisan," Aera said.
A sense of giddiness and frustration welled up and warred for dominance in his breast.
Did this explain why she had been so reluctant to accept Hunter's presence? Trey had undersold his performance?
Hearing about his performance secondhand might make it seem pretty lacklustre. If she was out of the loop, if she wasn't an artisan, then she wouldn't know any better. Hunter had placed fifth in a competition. He could see why the result inspired little confidence.
He'd come to terms with the outcome. His only remaining disappointment stemmed from placing lower than David Nettle and his troupe of screeching, hollering baboons.
And, sure, maybe he'd expected to win the whole thing going into it, but he'd had a lot to learn about humility over that weekend. And it was enough that he took Aera's words seriously. These young men and women were, mostly, highly educated and already accomplished. People like Jonathan Berrymoore and his team, who Hunter was sure he'd run into during his time here.
Fortunately, he'd had no trouble with them during the competition, so he remained open-minded towards them.
"How interested are you in hearing about how severely your father undersold my performance?"
"Words are far less persuasive than actions. Had you placed first, then I would be interested in what you might have to say."
"I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that no one our age has my level of knowledge about artisanship," he said. Her features took on a look that implied she was about to mock him. "You could say that my AR leaves something to be desired. You could also say that I'm riding on my father's reputation as an artisan. But I've proven myself. Your own father seems like a pretty smart guy. Do you really think he'd give me this sponsorship if he thought I had mere potential?"
She didn't like his tone, apparently. He figured that he'd end it there, in the interest of self preservation.
"I think we're both tired," Hunter said. "Consider what I've said. That Excellence is mine. It doesn't matter what I or anyone teaches you. You won't catch up to me, because you can't. I was at a severe disadvantage during the completion and I still outperformed 90 percent of the other teams by myself, with a fraction of their ARs, and completely exhausted."
He was the first to leave their session. It was a day stuffed full of significant firsts. It was his first actual conversation with Aera. He'd had his first classes, had his first encounter with Pippen Visgold; and Hunter Hunter was going to make it his personal mission to ensure that it was his last. But it was also his first time realizing that he hadn't only assumed a mantle of privilege and responsibility with his new name. He'd also inherited deep grudges and rivalries, which had lasted for generations. Now, he'd unknowingly stepped onto a battlefield that he wasn't prepared to fight in.
He considered Aera's new attitude towards him. Maybe it was a sign that he wouldn't be alone in surviving the fights ahead. It seemed that Aera was taking her father's last-but-not-least rule to heart.
He would have to count on her to have his back.
The multipurpose building was a ten-minute walk from the apartment. Hunter figured that he'd have time to make it home, shower, and have some dinner before going to sleep.
Fate had other plans.
Shortly after leaving, he'd heard footsteps echoing behind him. There weren't many people out at this time, so the footsteps felt conspicuous, and whoever the footsteps belonged to were making all the same turns he was.
He'd hoped that he was just being paranoid. Maybe they lived in the same apartment building.
Then some more people stepped in front of him from an alleyway and pulled him to the side.
"Sit," they said.
"Let me go—"
They shoved Hunter down onto a bench. Hunter saw the people who'd been following him come around the corner, smiling. He didn't recognize any of them. One of them stood watch at the end of the alley, and another was doing the same at the other end. He saw one or two people walking by, doing their best to ignore whatever was going on.
So this was how it was going to be, was it?
"Can we please not do this? I just want to get home," Hunter said, knowing as he spoke it wouldn't be that easy to make them leave him alone.
One of the group, a man wearing a mask, slapped Hunter in the face.
It hurt. He'd felt numb from Aera's training, but his body had time to interject its opinion about the poor treatment it had been receiving that evening. His body protested every movement.
"Remember, we can't hurt him too bad," the man said, stepping back.
The slap hurt, but it only joined the chorus of pain, which was present everywhere else.
Another one stepped forward and slapped Hunter where his friend had, and laughed. The rest of the gang laughed with him, and then they all joined in, taking turns slapping, until they started getting bored.
One of them punched him in the gut. He felt that old familiar feeling of the air leaving his lungs, and he gasped for breath. They all kept laughing. Hunter fell off the bench, unable to control himself as his body curled up. They stopped taking turns, all punching and kicking, laughing and hollering.
"He's so weak!"
"Did you see how he just curled up like that?"
"Oberon's standards are slipping if this is the trash they're bringing into the family."
No one had ever beaten Hunter before. Not like this. Even Aera would hold back. He could feel his bones breaking. He still couldn't breathe.
Was he going to die? He could taste blood in his mouth, and he felt dizzy. He wanted to scream for help, but he still couldn't breathe.
Then they relented and left.
Hunter blinked, and he was being carried. There were voices. He blinked again, and he was in a bright room. A woman stood over him, talking to someone. Then Aera was there as well. She was angry.
He couldn't move, but at least there wasn't any pain.
Where the gang had gone? It had only been a few moments. Had Aera seen them? They couldn't have gotten far.
Then Hunter slept.
He woke up with the most intense headache he'd ever had. Easily ten times more intense than anything he'd felt during the competition. The sight that met him as he opened his eyes was horrific. A cast enveloped his whole body.
"What the fuck?" he whispered. "What the fuck?"
The attack felt like it had only happened a moment ago. He could still hear them laughing and insulting him.
They were right, he really was weak. If this was what Aera had meant, if this was the attention that came with being an Oberon, then he wouldn't survive. It hadn't even been a full day, and he was already like this? What state would he be in after a month?
Would he even be alive after a year?
A nurse came in and saw that he was awake, and asked him some questions. He told her his name, where he thought he was, the year, and the name of his father. She informed him he was at the hospital, located just beyond the Academy's campus.
She called for a doctor to come to talk to him.
The doctor didn't have didn't have any good news.
"You have there broken ribs, and your right arm is broken in two places. You've also got a broken collarbone, a broken shin, and your skull has a few hairline fractures," he'd said.
So that explained the pain. The extent of the damage did not surprise him.
Most people might come away from that in much better shape. But Hunter felt certain that he'd nearly died. It was something he'd been avoiding his whole life. The Comics were the closest he'd gotten and felt like he'd escaped them by the skin of his teeth. It was almost like the universe had it out for him, where he avoided his cosmic punishment in one domain, it brought it to him in another.
But what had he done to deserve this?
"Who?" Hunter asked. It was all he could manage. It hurt to talk.
The doctor sighed.
"We don't know. There will be a detective arriving here soon. They're going to ask you questions, and it'll be their job to determine who was responsible. Get some rest. I'm sure you have a lot of questions, but they can wait. I'll inform your sister. She's been asking about you every day."
Sister? He thought, considering the strange word. Then he remembered.
Right, Aera.
She'd been asking about him? Every day? That didn't sound like her.
"Thanks," Hunter said. The doc smiled and nodded.
There was a small television in the room's corner. It was playing cartoons. He never liked cartoons, but he was grateful for the distraction.
---
Aera paced her room, thinking. She'd decided she'd skip her next class — she was three months ahead of everyone else, so she wasn't worried about missing anything important.
Hunter was an Oberon. They might have their differences, but they shared a name. That made an attack on him, an attack on her.
Someone had fucked up.
This never should have happened.
At best, they'd been careless. At worst, they were declaring war.
Aera would act on the latter assumption. Her fury would settle for no less. She would scorch the earth.
How brazen.
To jump straight to violence out of the gate? Aera had been studying the unofficial histories of Barnum, at her father's behest. He told her that there would be a pecking order, and she would be at the top of it. That meant it was up to her to help keep the peace, without trampling over the ambitions of those under her influence.
But this was an attack on Oberon. Fuck peace.
There was always a shadow side to things, and at Barnum, this was especially true. You couldn't bring the gathered interest of the world's greatest powers together in one place without sacrificing power of your own, and Barnum appeared to make this sacrifice willingly for the sake of prestige. The children who attend this place had a lot of influence, but they had to be careful. It was in everyone's interest to keep this little game — this microcosm of global power — running. That meant that they needed to stay civilized.
Tensions would be contained. Drama would be controlled. Sometimes things got out of control, but they took time to get out of control.
This had escalated far too quickly.
There was the possibility that his had been a random act of violence, but thinking that way felt useless to her. The odds were pointing to this being targeted. Hunter was a relatively unknown variable. Many people were interested in learning about his nature. How would he respond to being provoked?
That's how they played the game—taking measured actions and avoiding excessive risk.
Thus, her conclusion was that someone fucked up. They'd overestimated Hunter, and now they would have to pay the price. This would set the tone for the rest of their time at the academy — or at least the rest of her time.
A counter-statement would need to be made, not with words, but with actions.
No one fucks with the Oberons. Not if they want a bright and healthy future.
So she had taken most of the day off to come up with a plan. It wasn't as much time as she'd like, and she didn't know enough to take any concrete action.
That was frustrating.
Someone nearly killed Hunter on the Academy grounds. Her father was furious and had devoted resources to his own investigation, but he would have about as much luck as she was having. He'd threatened to have Hunter brought back home, but she'd calmed him down and convinced him to wait for Hunter to decide if that's what he wants. Although she hated to admit it, she and Hunter shared some common traits. They both refused to give up once they started something. She'd been thinking about how he'd spoken to her at their session, and she had to say she was impressed.
Instead of dismissing his entire rant from the session last night, she'd caught herself and considered what he'd said.
He was right; her father wasn't a fool, and although he made some impulsive decisions, he measured his actions to avoid significant loss. When he knows he's taking a risk, he'd be quick to admit it. So far, he'd been resolute in his decision with Hunter. As far as she was concerned, her father already saw Hunter as one of them — whether she or Hunter agreed with that assessment.
She hoped Hunter would be mediocre. His skills, while good enough for the competition's top 5, wouldn't be enough for Excellence.
She considered what she knew and admitted that it's possible she'd been selling Hunter short. Her emotions had clouded her judgement. She'd been too prideful to see it. She'd lost her integrity in pursuing what could very well have been nothing but her own childish immaturity. She still wasn't a fan, but she now saw him as an asset, not a liability. This only intensified her simmering rage.
To attack Hunter was to attack her, and to attack her was to attack her father.
What frustrated her was that there were too many variables. She had one lead, though. He'd mentioned Pippen Visgold.
Pippen was one of Jason's friends. That bothered her. The implications only spiralled downwards in severity. Confronting Pippen would do nothing — not unless it was part of a bigger play. Whether he had a part in Hunters' condition or not, she needed to approach this carefully. She needed evidence and a solid plan.
She needed to get even. Someone skipped the foreplay and pulled out the big guns. Aera wasn't afraid of violence, but she knew that there was a time and a place for it. And she would be damned sure that there would be a time and a place for it. Her ancestors never shied away from battle. It was time to teach the world that she was nothing if not a daughter of the Oberon.
She rang Jason's number.
He picked up.
"You've got J," he said.
"Its me," Aera said.
"Aera, darling. Good to hear your voice. You know, I was just thinking about how disappointed everyone was that you couldn't attend our little club. You wouldn't happen to have changed your mind about that in the last day or two, would you?"
Aera almost threw up, but she composed herself.
"Actually, I have. When did you say the next club meeting would be?"
She could feel Jason's creepy smile over the line.
"What a coincidence. We're going to have another one tonight, actually. Everyone will be so pleased to hear that you'll be taking part in—"
"—No, not taking part. I'll just be there to watch. And make some money, of course."
"Oh," Jason said, the disappointment in his voice almost sounded genuine, "Well, it would have been great to see the great Aera Oberon show off in person. But your presence is welcome. Regarding money-making opportunities," Jason paused, and Aera wanted to roll her eyes, "You won't be left disappointed."
He gave her an address, a password, and a time to show up at.
She hung up first.
She wanted to throw the phone across the room.
That damned alleyway. She hadn't even thought to look as she'd passed it. Why would she? Yet she must have passed right by him. He could have died.
Her phone rang. It was a nurse from the hospital. Hunter was awake.
She needed to know what he knew. Whoever had done this would pay.
No one fucks with the Oberons.