Academy of Secrets (original version)

Making Diabolical Plans

Earth took my mind off everything again. Just staring at it made me feel like any problem I had didn’t matter anymore. No matter what I did, I could always come back to this planet and it’d look just as beautiful as it did before. The Tesseract braced for atmosphere penetration again. The wreaths of flames wrapping around the ship, crazed pressure against me, and my twisting stomach bothered me a lot less this time. I broke the mother computer. I screwed up the mission. And I lied about it.

The thought didn’t leave me until we exited the Tesseract. Then I tried talking myself out of it. It didn’t matter. I reported the damage. That was all they needed to know. How it happened wouldn’t help them anyway. Besides, none of it mattered if this Havoc Rift destroyed everything. That was what I had to focus on…right? Only, the mother computer could’ve had something important on it. But what the hell would Kethians know about the Havoc Rift? No, it was fine. Plus they had tons of computers. I hated how my mind worked. I tried to push these thoughts out of my head as TJ charged towards me.

“That was so awesome! Our first mission ever! We used actual weapons and blew things up!”

“And kicked Glade ass!”

“Yes!”

TJ grabbed me with both hands and pulled me into a huge hug. I laughed, patting his back.

“Well looks like some people made up!”

TJ set me down. Drake and Tami approached, both grinning, and holding hands. I didn’t know if they even realized they were doing that. I smirked at them.

“That’s adorable guys.”

I bobbed my head at their interlocked hands. Drake and Tami turned a deep shade of red and yanked their hands away from each other. TJ started laughing. Drake rubbed his head, looking anywhere but at Tami.

“So…that off-Earth assignment was kind of awesome.”

Then Tami jumped in, doing crazy gestures with her hands.

“Oh my God! We fought aliens and stuff! And all the weapons and things and the station and going on another planet and the Hyrion and—oh! The Hyrion! Did you guys get Hyrion?”

“Yeah! We kind of…ate it?”

TJ gave me an uncertain look. I shrugged.

“That’s what it seemed like.”

“Us too,” said Drake.

He reached for Tami’s hand once more. She looked ready to take it, until she remembered TJ and me standing there. Her ears turned red and she moved away. Drake looked a little disappointed, but he didn’t try for her hand again. Before anyone could comment, a voice came on over the intercom.

“Attention returning students from the Eugoria off-Earth assignment. All sessions will be suspended for five days for recovery period. You may spend the time as you wish. That will be all.”

“Sweet! Then we can start our operation thing for that project.”

Drake looked around after saying this, as if he expected agents to fall from the ceiling and take him away.

“Yeah, say it a little louder Drake. It’s not like it’s a secret or anything,” I said gesturing ahead,” Come on, Reevus probably wants to see us.”

Actually, I just needed to do something so I could stop thinking about the mother computer incident. It kept creeping at the edge of my mind. As much as I tried to tell myself it wasn’t a big deal, the more I knew it was. We continued in a mob towards Reevus’ office, buzzing with conversation about the off-Earth assignment. Don’t think about the computer—don’t think about the computer. I chewed the inside of my lip. In the middle of Drake’s story about finding the Kethians, I felt someone looking at me. Tami had fallen in step next to me. She did that thing again where she’d glance at me and quickly look away. I sighed.