Hunter (an experiment)

[Academia Nut]

So, my head is clogged with ideas and I just want to try a little writing experiment here.

---

The lecture theatre was crowded with fresh faced students, a palpable static buzz of anticipation charging the air, hundreds of boys and girls on the edge of adulthood all eagerly crammed into the space on the first day, there being barely enough room for everyone in the amphitheatre style seating. Along with the general excitement of being summoned to these exalted chambers, there was more than a little anxiety for being summoned to these exalted chambers, mixed in with some nervousness about the ceiling of the lecture hall being painted in an image of the foreboding stars that had once hung over the lost cities of humanity.

The incessant low level buzz and chatter died down the instant the doors swung open at the front of the theatre to reveal the one who would address them and thus choke the words stillborn within the throat. Crinkles and creases of age mixing with scars of battle to create a face of cracked, half-fired clay that despite the evident venerability of the bearer only served to vanquish any thoughts that the woman before them was a crone. If anything, the word appropriate for her was ‘vintage’, for while her body showed the toil of years and mileage, expert maintenance kept it in top condition, as evidenced by the crispness of her step.

Clean, grey eyes unclouded by the toll of years and cold as iron stared out over the assembled mass of students, watching them all with predatory intensity. Having taken them all in, the utterly deadly looking woman said without preamble, “I wonder which amongst you will make it?”

Dead silence greeted her question.

“Will it be the best of you?” She suggested. “Unlikely. The best are heroes, of which we have little room for here and a gnawing need for in the Guardians. Guardians never take a step back, preferring death to retreat, to which we all owe our lives. We on the other hand spend the majority of our time hiding or running from things we cannot harm.”

Scanning over the crowd, unnerved by her words, she then asks, “Could it be the worst of you then? The thugs, bullies, and ruffians? The scum of the hives to take the fight to the enemy? No, I’ll kill you lot myself before I let a sociopath out of the tunnels. We are not the Guardians, but we are still protectors, the selfless and bold, who sacrifice everything to the cause. We have no room for the worst amongst our ranks.”

A murmur like a thousand whispers held back began to grow within the theatre, as the urge to whisper to the other students was held back by the deadly look on the old woman’s face. Now pacing back and forth at the front of the amphitheatre, she continued, “The average perhaps? The average will not make it far in this class and will quickly find a new curriculum amongst the Guardians, who need every body that they can get. Well, if the best, worst, and average are out, then who will make it?”

The whole class held its breath, staring down intently at the old woman who now had them all entranced. A crooked smile broke out across her face, and she finally said, “The only ones to make it through what we have to teach will have to characteristics: they will be elite, and they will be crazy. Elite, because what we have to teach is taught nowhere else, and crazy, because that is what is required to want to go forward with what we teach.”

Pausing to let the class inhale, if not speak, she then asked, “Yet if only a few will make it, why are you all here today? Why? Well because we will need to find out who is elite and crazy and the more we start with, the more we can whittle away to discover that special sort of maniac who willingly leaves the hives and tunnels to fight back. We are not the armour of the earth or the shield of the Guardians, but the sword of humanity. We remind the enemy that we still draw breathe, that this world is not yet theirs completely. And for that we take hundreds of the top students fresh out of graduation from Primary and sift you all out. And for that, we are showered in honours and prestige to remind us what a vital job we do. And for that, we are called Hunters.”

Turning from the assembled crowd, the old woman says, “A data packet has been forwarded to all of your accounts. Those of you who wish to continue on with this training I suggest that you read over it by tomorrow, while everyone else I suggest put in for a transfer out of the program. We don’t need anyone scared off by my little speech.”

With hardly another word, she turned and left the amphitheatre, leaving the assembled students to stare blankly for a few seconds before exploding into animated discussion. What had that all been about?

For James, he sat in silence, trying to figure out if there was further meaning behind what had been said while his friends from Primary who had also scored high began to chatter amongst each other. He zoned them out while he tried to think. His first instinct was to hunt down the old woman and ask for further information, like he had done with his teachers in Primary, but he had a feeling that might not work here.

Still pondering, he felt a shove on his shoulder and looked to his left where his friend Leo was sitting. He said, “Hey man, I say we screw this place and this program. We got the day off; we might as well enjoy it before switching over to Guardian.”

James blinked. He had not even yet thought about leaving the Hunter program despite the fear that gripped at him. Still, they did have the day off, no matter what else happened, and he was not the sort of keener that would immediately dig out his data pad to look at the information sent. That could wait for later.

Still…

---

Okay, now for where the experiment comes in. This will become a bit of an audience participation event, with sections ending on a choice and me listening to input to decide what to do next. Will James try and track down the teacher, or will he head off with his buddy Leo for the rest of the day?

[darthdavid]

Track down the teacher...

[White Haven]

Woo! More Academia Nut! I definitely like what I see of this universe so far, has me wondering if we're dealing with a technological foe or something more Lovecraftian. Knowing you, it could very easily be either or both.

As for me, I also vote for him to try pumping the instructor for more information.

[LadyTevar]

IF it worked for Primary, it will work even better here, as it's something no one else will have considered. Track down the Teacher. She's probably expecting it of him.

[JonB]

Make that three for tracking down the teacher. But in doing so, we must have a goal in mind beyond 'there she is'.

I request that we ask for previous statistics about this class. How many give up and join the Guardians or stay underground? How many of those who try to become hunters actually make it?

[White Haven]

I'm thinking if James is a crazy enough bastard to go for Hunter status, he'd be the kinda guy who asks about Hunter kill ratios, rather than graduation or casualty rates.

[Academia Nut]

By vote across the Internet, the score is four to teacher, one to Leo, and one abstain. The goal here is short, quick updates to keep my mind working.

---

Waving off Leo, James says, “I’ll meet you later man, I’m going to do a few things here at the academy first?”

“What is there to do?” Leo asks sceptically.

Shrugging, James replies, “I don’t know man, I just need to get all my circuits straightened out, okay?”

Rolling his eyes, Leo states, “Whatever. I’ll be down at the rec centre when you’re done.”

“Yeah, yeah,” James says while waving his friend goodbye as he descended the steps of the amphitheatre while Leo went for the upper exits. Moving into the milling stream of people, he quickly discovered that he was not the only person who appeared to have gone off in pursuit of their elder teacher. About half a dozen other students, mostly guys with one girl, had also split off from the main crowds and seemed intent on penetrating deeper into the academy. More than half already had out their data pads and seemed to alternately be looking at the transmitted data packet or at biographical details of their lecturer to locate her office.

Quietly infiltrating into the group, his ears burning slightly at not even having gone to the effort to learn the woman’s name, James followed along as they moved deeper into the place, passing empty gymnasia that despite having been aired out for the start of semester still had the accumulated lingering odour of dozens of generations of exertion by pupils wafting out into the halls. There were classrooms and lecture theatres, although none as big as the one they had just left. There were even rooms that were filled floor to ceiling with hard data storage, and even books.

Rounding a corner, the little group of keeners, and James following along, found a small office with the lights out, no one inside, and the door conspicuously open. Looking about, the group seemed to settle upon the place to wait for the arrival of the teacher. They did not have long to wait, for the teacher was already waiting for them, they just had not yet realized it.

“Well, well, well,” the old woman clucked from right behind one of the other boys, causing him to practically leap out of his skin with shock, so engrossed was he in whatever was on his data pad. Despite the boy’s inattention, James was nearly as startled as he could swear that he had not seen the woman there just a second ago and now she commanded the attention of everyone in the hallway.

Snickering at the fright of her pupils, the old woman sneered down at the collection of young men and women and said, “It is a pity that despite our efforts the testing always seems to produce a crop of students good at taking tests rather than doing the thing the tests are supposed to check the development of: actually learning. First day, always the same: after I give my little speech there’s always a couple who are confused and come to teacher for guidance. Well consider today a pop quiz on figuring out life your own damn self. I don’t give true/false or multiple choice quizzes, and there’s no partial credit for showing your work. So go on, get out of here. The Guardians need stolid, boring logistics officers and the Artisans need managers, the Hunters don’t need people who need their hands held.”

The little group scattered almost immediately, a few with tears streaming down their faces, while James felt panic snare his own heart in a vice grip while fear seized his feet and went to carry him away. He did not get very far though, getting just to a turn in the hall before he decided to hide rather than run, finding a convenient nook to crawl into.

Shaking all over, breath coming in frantic gasps, James tried to figure out what the hell had just happened and found rational thought continuously slipping out of his fingers. He just wanted to get away from that old crone, to crawl into bed and forget he had ever graduated high enough in his class to be considered for Hunter training.

But as proximity to the source of existential terror faded, James found his panic fading far too quickly. His mind went over and over what had happened again and again, but instead of working himself into a worse state in a constant death spiral, he found confusion growing instead. The rational part of him found nothing said to be some fundamentally terrifying, and the irrational part of him strangely agreed with the rational part, feeling on the whole rather cheated.

Crawling out of the little hole in the wall that probably normally housed a fire extinguisher or some other piece of equipment, James felt every muscle faintly humming with residual energy, but now instead of total terror he felt just a sort of dread towards a repeat of the experience along with a strange sort of curiosity towards what had happened.

Slinking back toward the office, James inched his way forward, pressing up against the wall despite a large part of him feeling distinctly stupid about it. Instead, as he moved his head toward the door he heard a whisper next to him say, “Your technique needs work.”

Practically jumping out of his skin, James found the teacher right behind him, mockingly mirroring his attempts at stealth although obviously with far greater canniness to so easily sneak up on him. Falling on his ass in fright, James stared up at her in total dread and awe, his whole body vibrating like a badly tuned food synethizer.

“You came back. What are you, crazy?” The old woman asks.

Mentally groping for a response, James takes a few seconds to come up with a witty comeback and instead stumbles out, “I-I th-thought-t-t you-u want-t-ted crazy?”

Gazing down at him, the teacher grins cheekily before she says, “Ha! Crazy not dependent, but not bad kid, not bad.”

The feelings of terror suddenly flooding out of him, replaced by a weird sort of confidence, James finds a hand like a leather glove repeatedly patched with different grades of material extended out to him. Taking it, James finds himself hauled to his feet by strength that most twenty-year old men would kill for.

Patting him on the shoulder, the old woman says, “First lesson of the Hunters: not all who attend the lecture attend the lesson, and not all who attend the lesson actually learn it.”

Now thoroughly confused, other than the fact the he had apparently just received some sort of impromptu object lesson on how the Hunters worked, James just looks at her bewildered before he asks, “What was that all about?”

Grinning, the old teacher says, “It means that you have some issues to work out. No one comes back, or comes back that fast, without issues to work out. Fortunately, they are the sorts of things we can fix and subsequently expand on into awesome and terrific new neuroses.”

Turning him back toward the hall, she then says, “Now get going kid, I’ve got a busy day of scaring the crap out of confused students and seeing how many come back.” Then as encouragement she delivered a slow kick to the rear end that still felt like a hydraulic piston had misfired into James’ butt.

Stumbling along, James just shook his head. That was… that was just crazy what had happened there. He needed to think… or maybe not think; a state of mind Leo easily put one in. He could probably catch up with his friend easily enough, he would probably just be a train or two behind him in getting back down hive to their standard rec centre.

---

Next decision: to think and brood for a little while, or to go blow off steam with Leo.

[White Haven]

I'm thinking Leo. Poor guy's got a shedload of nervous energy rattling around his system right about now after...whatever that was, heh.

[LadyTevar]

James needs to talk to Leo and tell him how weird that was. Leo will give him advice -- whether it's helpful or not will be the question.

[Academia Nut]

Sorry about no update yesterday, I got sick. Still, the purpose of this experiment is to just sit down and write while getting feedback, so here's a quick bit.

---

Thinking for just a moment, James realizes that he cannot function like this and he needs to work out a lot of stress before he can think more clearly about what in earth just happened. Leaving the academy halls behind at a brisk pace, James heads straight for the train station that connects the sub-development to the main hive, arriving just as the current train leaves. Pulling up the schedule on the data pad, he sees that it will be a good half hour before the next one leaves. Assuming that Leo was on the one before that, James was probably a good hour behind his friend. Hopefully he would not leave the rec centre before James got there, but if he ran into one of their other friends.

Shrugging as he sat down on a bench, James figured that in the worst case scenario he could just call Leo. Data pad still in hand, James quickly flicks through to the data packet sent to him by the school. Opening it up, he finds the first bit nothing more than a rehashing of the same sort of stuff he learned in Civics back in Primary; Artisans, Guardians, Healers, Watchmen, and Hunters, the whole spiel. Scrolling through the bland information, Leo finally found something new on the fifth page of the document.

While not a secret, it is not widely disseminated that as part of their function, Hunters require and are granted wide latitude with the laws of the hives to complete their missions. In fact, it is a constitutional guarantee that Hunters remain exempt from many of the laws that govern all other citizens, the most noticeable being the exemption of all graduated Hunters from both routine and random biometric scanning. To compensate, Hunters also lose many of the privileges enjoyed by other citizens, most noticeably the right to vote or serve in the government.

James’ brain came to a screeching halt with that and tried to work out the implications of what he had just read. It had been taught to him since birth that biometric scanning was necessary to catch infiltrators and Anathema. Opening up a half dozen new windows from hyperlinks, James quickly searched through pages deeper in the document for some sort of explanation as to this insanity.

Finally he found it, buried on the hundredth page of the document.

Hunters take the fight to the enemy and thus must go to where the enemy is. This means venturing out on to the surface and suffering inevitable contamination. While monitoring by fellow Hunters and by Healers is constant, any Hunter that underwent a routine biometric scan in public would immediately trip alarms and generate panic. Thus Hunters are given special waiver for such scans as their function is considered too important to eliminate despite the risks.

Hunters went to the surface. Intellectually, James supposed he had already known that, but to have it explicitly spelled out to him. What a terrifying concept. Worse yet, if he was reading this write then every Hunter would be classified as an Anathema, something that made him shudder inwardly. Yet… yet…

James was scared by this revelation, but this was no secret document, anyone and everyone could theoretically read it and know this fact, yet it was not shouted to the rooftops. It was accepted by the government, so whatever was going on had to have implicit approval. And despite the instinctive terror, James also found himself curious. Despite a lifetime of being told stories of the monsters that had taken over their world, he still wondered what lay beyond the cold stone walls of the hive.

His reading and reflection having eaten up time, James found the train out of the academy had arrived. Entering, he slumped down on a seat and tried not to think as the maglev pulled away from the station and into the dark tunnels that connected to the main hive. Quick and expedient, it took but a few minutes to cross the kilometres of crust that separated the two structures. In a commuter daze, James quickly navigated the multi-layered labyrinth of the hive’s transit system, finding himself in front of the rec centre that served his community within half an hour of getting on the first train.

Entering inside, he found the place mostly deserted, which was normal considering that at this time of day most people would be out working or in school. Pulling up the local assistant program on his data pad James requests, “Is Leo currently within the facility?”

The semi-intelligent program, complemented by James’ own preferences and personal data on his own pad, parses what he was saying as easily as a human familiar with him and replies, “Leo is currently down at the pool and has been there for the past forty-five minutes.”

Sighing, James worked out in his head how long Leo was likely to remain doing laps. He really just wanted to talk to his friend, but maybe doing some physical exercise first would help blow off his nerves. Of course, Leo would probably finish within the next fifteen minutes to half an hour, so James could probably just wait out here for him.

---

So, go to the pool, or wait for Leo to come out?

[LadyTevar]

going to the pool would work out the excess energy. Sitting and waiting would give him more time to look over the packet.

James seems more the active type to me. He won't be able to just sit right now. Too much on his mind, he has to get it out somehow.

[Academia Nut]

Not really feeling like going through the effort of getting changed to likely have to get out of the pool ten minutes later, James decided to find a nice couch to flop down on and pick up on reading through the packet. Thumbing through the information once again, he found a frown settling on his face. There was information in here, shocking information at that, but it was buried under useless fluff for the most part.

Closing his eyes and leaning back, James tried to compile everything that had been dumped on him today; the strange, short speech in the amphitheatre; the inexplicable terror he felt when dismissed by his teacher; and the unsettling knowledge that the Hunters fought on the surface and were thus contaminated in ways that James should despise but found he could not.

Analyzing the latter two events, something clicked and James shivered in horror. That terror he felt when confronting the old woman he could have very well been unnatural in origin, the by-product of contamination from the surface. Worse yet, since he had not been terrified in the lecture theatre or all the time he had been in her presence, evidently she had some control over the ability, indicating practice and thus intent. If she was the sort that they felt good to teach the next generation of Hunters, then who did they think were unsuitable?

Yet, tantalizingly, if the ability to project mind blowing terror was something practiced, did that mean that all Hunters could do that, or something like it? Anathema were said to possess strange and terrible powers, and all Hunters were exempt from the tests designed to root out such abominations because they would fail them. The speech had emphasized that the Hunters wanted people that were crazy enough to do what they did, but selfless nonetheless. They wanted people who they could give power to without having them abuse it…

James’ unsettling train of thought was interrupted by a strange voice that said, “By the expression on your face either the food synthesizer has a bacterial infection again or you’ve got one hell of an assignment to tackle.”

Blinking, James looks around in confusion, only to find a rather cute young woman leaning over the back of the couch opposite from him, staring at him with a smirk on her face while her straight black hair framed her face quite nicely. While the couch obscures most of the rest of her, James could clearly see the Artisan apprentice badge on the right shoulder of her jumpsuit, which makes her somewhere between two and four years older than him.

“Umm…” James notes as his brain attempts to switch gears only to jam the clutch and stall out.

Snickering, the young woman rounds the couch and plops down, saying, “The latter I see if you’re that confused.”

Now in possession of a clear view of the entire body along with the face, James faces the unfortunate task of having to re-engage the gears of his mind right at the same time he is undergoing a SCRAM event due to a reactor overheat. Some people did not wear a jumpsuit well. This girl was most emphatically not one of them.

Seeing James’ inability to reply, she playfully retorts, “Unless of course you’re always this inarticulate.”

Feeling like he was behind by several steps, James just kept his mouth shut instead of letting it flap open like an imbecile. Feeling sweat break out on his brow from nerves at the long silence and the growing smile on the girl’s face, James finally manages to get out, “I’m sorry but strangers approaching me randomly often leaves rather disconcerted.”

Raising an eyebrow while grinning in a way that was simultaneously emasculating and incredibly arousing, the girl suggests, “I bet the fact that I’m female makes this the most disconcerting thing all day.”

“Actually, this is only about the third or fourth most disconcerting thing all day,” James admits rather casually.

Tilting her head to the side so that her hair just misses obscuring her left eye, the girl purses her lips and asks, “Oh? If you’re so used to being ‘disconcerted’ that I only rank number three I don’t know why I even make the list.”

“Because despite your incredible hotness my first day of classes was far more terrifying,” James says before his mind realizes what his mouth is speaking. Already dealing with a potential meltdown and thrown gears, Captain Brain now finds that Commander Phallus appears to be attempting a mutiny in the middle of action.

Amazingly, the girl laughs and says, “I guess that is why you’re here instead of in class.”

Academically offended, James says, “Hey! The whole class got dismissed early!”

“Ah, remedial studies then,” the girl replies.

To Commander Phallus’ horror, Captain Brain orders a full broadside even as Lieutenants Testosterone and Adrenaline struggle with him. Now infuriated, James says, “No! I in fact passed with honours most of my tests in Primary, which is why I was accepted into the Hunters instead of the Artisans.”

Now it was the girl’s turn to suffer a loss for words, although once it hit him what he had said, James adds on lamely, “Uh… err… sorry, I didn’t mean it like that…”

“You’re in the Hunters?” She asks with a mix of curiosity and awe.

The wild fur ball of struggling internal impulses came to a shocked standstill at the fact that the hottest girl to ever talk to James had not walked away after he had insulted her. All James can do is blink in surprise before he says, “Well… just the first day of class which was like five minutes if that, but yeah…”

Leaping to her feet, the girl exclaims, “That is so awesome!”

The control room of his mind now thoroughly on fire from the spreading disaster of the officers fighting and the machinery exploding, James asks on autopilot, “It is?”

“My godfather is a Hunter and he is so cool!” The girl practically squeals before she sits down next to James and asks, “Is that some sort of super secret Hunter stuff?”

A bleating noise not dissimilar to an emergency klaxon calling for all hands to abandon the station escapes James’ lips for a few seconds before he says, “No?”

“Really? What is it then?” The girl asks, clearly eager to find out more. A small, detached part of James wonders if she can feel the heat radiating off his blushing face because he can feel the warmth of her proximity, which of course is making things worse. A less calm part of him was noting with increasing panic the relative pros and cons of having to wear a loose jumpsuit and begging to the ancestors that she remains focused on his data pad lest his embarrassment reach a point where he spontaneously combusts. Another part of him, responsible for the panic of the second part, was currently tying up as much run time as possible on an increasingly detail multimedia demonstration.

“Uh… uh… it is, ah, it is public info,” James stutters out.

Nodding, she says, “Of course, they don’t trust the secret stuff to the uninitiated,” while looking over the data pad.

Managing to get the proprietary part of his mind back and running, James asks, “Look, if you’re going to steal my stuff, could you at least tell me your name?”

“Yolanda. And wow is this stuff basic… I think I learned most of it back in Primary,” she says while going through the first page of the data pad.

“It’s James,” James grumbles, not feeling particularly pleased about being ignored. He then adds on, “And I think it was intentionally set up that way.”

“Huh… you think so?” Yolanda asks.

“Yeah, there is some stuff in there that while apparently isn’t secret it isn’t openly advertised either, so I think that they are hiding stuff in there,” James explains, feeling more in his competency zone despite the fact that a good chunk of his brain was still shut down by the encounter.

“Huh… I guess that makes some sort of sense. Hunters are in information gathering,” Yolanda notes while looking through some of the other pages James had previously bookmarked.

“They are?” James asks. “I mean, I know from civics and everything that the Hunters are a branch of the military like the Guardians and that they take up an offensive role, but the information given has always been rather vague in comparison to even the Watchmen.”

“My godfather would occasionally talk with my parents about his life when he came over to visit. Not much, nothing specific of course, but most of the stories he did talk about were tracking things or the like,” Yolanda says.

“I guess that’s why they call them Hunters,” James notes lamely.

“Hey! Yeah, I never thought about it like that,” Yolanda notes before dropping the data pad with a sigh and saying, “Damn, I can’t read that! It’s so damn boring!”

Picking the pad up, James frowns and says, “It’s kind of dry, but there are enough interesting bits in there to keep you wanting to read. I mean, on page five it outright states that Hunters are not subject to biometric scanning.”

“What?” Yolanda yelps, grabbing the data out from James’ hands again, this time her fingers brushing against his. They were rougher than his, as befitting an Apprentice Artisan in comparison to a guy just out of Primary, but still…

Looking over the data pad, she frowns and asks, “Where?”

Pointing to the relevant paragraph, James can’t help but grin. Now it was his turn to be the smooth, in-control one while she had no idea how to respond. Her eyes quickly flickering as they took in the words, Yolanda says, “Wow. Damn. I mean. Wow. No wonder they rank reading comprehension for so much in comparison to math and fitness for acceptance into the Hunters.”

“Really? I mean…” James asks in confusion.

Shrugging, Yolanda says, “I did alright on the tests, but my eyes just glaze over for something this big so I lost points on the long form stuff, and look, you even opened up other pages and I can’t even find the relevant bits in them.”

James was dumbstruck, but not for the reasons previously brought up in this unusual conversation. He then blurts out, “What was your math score in the exams?”

“Why is that relevant?” Yolanda asks, looking at him funny.

Incandescent with embarrassment at his own rudeness, James answers, “Uh… sorry, I uh… I don’t know.”

“You think I’m some dumb bimbo, don’t you?” Yolanda says, glaring at him.

“Maybe,” James squeaks.

“I scored a 98,” Yolanda states.

James’ jaw drops open and when he gets it closed again all he can say is, “Damn! I only got a 92! With a math score like that you must have got into one of the awesome slots for Artisans.”

“Weapons,” Yolanda says proudly. “My dad’s a Guardian, so I’ll be designing and building lances and the like for him and his comrades.”

“Nice… umm… actually, I think the knowledge that you’re better at me at math is a bigger turn on than your already incredible hotness,” James admits, before clamming up in horror at his own forwardness.

Instead, Yolanda laughs and says, “While complements on my body are frequent, most guys are too intimidated by my smarts to take notice of them. And you are very different from how I picture a Hunter, all brooding and silent.”

“Well, it is my first day so maybe that’s an acquired thing, and I can brood with the best of them if I put my mind to it,” James notes.

“Trust me, he can,” an unexpected third party in the form of Leo walking in on the scene, his hair still wet from the pool as he sat down next to James and gave him a look that said ‘Nice.’

“And who is this?” Yolanda asks, looking intrigued at Leo, which was not hard to understand why even though James still glared at him for it.

“This Leo, my buddy from Primary and the reason he scored as high as he did on math, science, reading comp, and damn near everything else,” James notes.

Smirking, Leo responds, “And my buddy James here scored as high as he did on his fitness because of me in exchange.”

“Oh, so I presume that James was like the other Artisans I know who had to take remedial fitness after Primary?” Yolanda inquires.

“Nah, James wasn’t that bad. I just made him swim laps with me and we did some occasional sparring, which had to have boosted his scores from mediocre to above average,” Leo notes, before he swats James on the arm and says, “I don’t know what the hell you were up to, but you should have come with me, I got in a great work out today.”

“But then I wouldn’t have seen him frowning over his data pad,” Yolanda points out cheerfully.

Seeing James’ data pad still in her hands, Leo quirks an eyebrow towards the ceiling and then asks dismissively, “Did you actually open up the file after that load of sewage they fed us at the lecture?”

James opens his mouth to say something before closing it again and furrowing it in thought and irritation. Why did Leo deserve to know what James had found out if he had no intention of pursuing the training in the Hunters?

---

Today's question: blow off Leo or actually tell him some of the stuff he's found out?

[LadyTevar]

"Yes, I read it. But since you're going Guardian, it wouldn't interest you"

[Singular Quartet]

I'm going to have to weigh in on "Oh, it's mostly stuff you should already know."

[darthdavid]

He's obviously not interested...