The Quantum Games(The Alchemists Academy)

Chapter 15





Roland stormed his way to the transportation tubes ahead of Wirt, jumping into them and heading away. It was hard to say exactly where, because the nature of the transport tubes made it impossible to be certain about that kind of thing, but Wirt guessed that Roland would either be away to practice more, or back to his room.

There was something about the sheer anger with which Roland had left that made Wirt follow, but not using the tubes. That would have just brought him out behind Roland and led to the other boy demanding to know what he was doing. Instead, he transported himself back to the room he shared with Robert and peered out of the door, waiting until Roland had gone past, heading for his own room.

Wirt crept across to the door as quietly as he could. The wood was thick, making it hard to hear through, but then Wirt remembered the trick he’d picked up in Ms. Burns’ lesson and pushed his senses outwards, feeling the world around him. It worked better than he could have expected, or perhaps he had simply forgotten that before, it had let him feel the whole forest. For a moment or two, he could feel the whole of the tree around him. He could see it mapped out for him; hear every conversation inside it at once. He could feel its tangled network of roots spreading, and spreading…

Wirt managed to pull his mind back enough to concentrate on Roland’s room, hearing the voices within it. One was Roland’s, while the other was cracked and whispering, seemingly barely there. The voice from the box.

“I… I didn’t win the second event,” Roland said. His usual casual arrogance was gone, replaced by something else. Fear.

“You have failed? You have lost?”

“I can still get through to the final,” Roland insisted.

“Final? What is this? Is this not the Quantum Games?” The voice from the box sounded agitated.

“They have preliminary rounds now,” Roland said. He still sounded frightened. “Debates, and obstacle courses, and things. I tried to make the obstacle course more dangerous.”

“Trying is the same as failing,” the voice from the box said. “You do a thing, you succeed in it, or you do not. And debates!”

“There are three of us,” Roland explained. “They want to get rid of one of us before the final.”

“And you have failed in a round?” The other voice rose slightly. “We have worked so hard to arrange this. You will not fail. You cannot. Bad enough that now you can only kill one of them…”

“I’ll find a way,” Roland promised.

“You had better.”

Wirt crept away from the door. He’d heard all he needed to. In a way, he hadn’t really heard anything new. He’d known that Roland wanted to kill him and Spencer. He’d certainly known that the other boy wouldn’t show him any mercy. He headed off to find Robert and see if they had any lessons together.

They didn’t right then, but Robert did insist that they practiced swordplay again, battering against Wirt’s defenses with cut after cut as he tried to teach him the basics. Wirt told him about what he’d heard and Robert shrugged.

“You took a risk going after Roland like that,” he said. “What if he’d heard you out there? And you didn’t really learn anything new.”

“I might have, though,” Wirt said.

Robert nodded. “I guess so. Sometimes you have to take risks.” He swung his sword at Wirt again and Wirt ducked. “Better, but I’m not sure you’ll ever be a swordsman.”

“Then why keep practicing?” Wirt asked. “Why not concentrate on other things?”


“What if one day, a sword is all you have?” Robert asked. “What if you’re in a battle, where there are swords all around? This is the kind of kingdom where everyone has a sword, Wirt. You at least need to know enough to survive.”

So they kept working, and it would have been nice to say that eventually Wirt was able to beat Robert in one of their practice bouts, but he didn’t. He did get better though, so that as the day wore on he was able to block blows better than at the start and make a few attacks that Robert had to work harder to parry.

Eventually, they headed back inside to the student lounge. There was no sign of Roland there, but Wirt saw Spencer over in one corner, reading a textbook on balancing forces between objects.

“You’re still studying hard, then?” Wirt said lightly, going over to him. He was ready to walk away if Spencer didn’t want him there, or if that sense of competition from the Games was there, but he hoped that it wouldn’t be like that.

“I have a lot I need to keep up with,” Spencer said. There were more textbooks underneath the first one. “While we’re going through the Games, everyone else is getting ready for next year. I sometimes feel like I’m falling behind.”

Wirt smiled at that. Spencer had always been doing extra work when they’d been roommates. If there was anyone less likely to fall behind, Wirt hadn’t met them.

“I don’t think there’s much of a chance of that,” Wirt said.

Spencer shook his head. “I didn’t either, but maybe that’s why I didn’t make it into the elite class outright. Maybe I was too complacent.”

Wirt shook his head. He’d forgotten that Spencer wouldn’t know about what he’d worked out. “I don’t think that’s what it was.”

“You might not, but it’s what the headmaster thinks that matters.”

“What I mean is that I think Roland did this. He sabotaged us in the tests.”

For a moment, Wirt saw a flash of anger cross Spencer’s features. “I wouldn’t put it past him, but it’s too late for that now. Thanks for telling me, Wirt.”

For that moment, at least, it was like having his friend back. The two of them sat there and started to talk about the latest things happening in the school, who was doing what, and what the Games might hold in the next few days.

“You deserved to win today,” Wirt said. “I froze, and Roland… well, I guess you were right, we both did kind of try to just impose what was best for us on the school.”

Spencer shrugged. “It’s easy enough to understand. I mean, Roland is just power mad, and for you, this is your home. You stay here over the vacations, there isn’t really anywhere else for you to go. I guess I can see why you wouldn’t want it to change.”

Wirt nodded. He wasn’t sure when the school had become home for him, but it had. He could barely remember a time when he hadn’t been there now. All his best memories were there, as well as most of his strangest ones. A lot of those memories featured Spencer, because he was Wirt’s closest friend. It was stupid that they should have been driven apart like this. Robert was fine, but really, wasn’t Wirt mostly welcoming him as a friend and roommate because Spencer wasn’t an option?

“You still did a good job of convincing people,” Wirt said.

“That’s just from spending so much time in my father’s companies,” Spencer said with a shrug, like it was the most natural thing in the world to be brought up with the running of a multi-planar corporation in mind. “He’s made me practice giving presentations to the board, and taught me all about bringing people around to my point of view. Well, he’s had me taught all about it. He was kind of busy at the time.”

Wirt nodded. He knew how busy Spencer’s father was. He’d seen the calls over the crystal ball Spencer kept, where his father had barely stayed on for a minute or two, or where one of his secretaries had spent time apologizing because Mr. Bentley couldn’t come to speak to him. He also knew how hard Spencer worked to catch his father’s attention. Losing out on an automatic place in the elite class must have hurt.

Yet in some ways, Wirt guessed that it might have been a good thing. Spencer’s father wouldn’t have made a big deal of it if Spencer got in, because he would simply have expected it. Instead, Spencer was engaged in the life and death struggle of the Games. Mr. Bentley had to take notice of that. And then there was Alana, and Spencer’s sudden willingness to stand up to his father over her. Would that have happened if he hadn’t been in the Games? Wirt didn’t know, though there was a small part of him that wished then that Spencer had gone through, because then things wouldn’t be so complicated.

For now though, it was like being back as things were before the Quantum Games began. He noticed the moment when things changed. Spencer looked up and his expression altered completely. It softened, then he looked at Wirt and it went harder than it had been before. Wirt looked round, but he already knew what he would see. Who he would see.

Alana stood in the doorway, wearing modern clothes today, with faded jeans and a t-shirt that only served to emphasis how much she had grown and changed over the previous vacation. Her dark hair seemed to shine as it fell down around her shoulders. Wirt couldn’t help staring at her, because she was so utterly perfect standing there.

Spencer stepped past him, and glanced at Wirt in a way that made it clear he’d seen the look Wirt had given Alana. He strode over to Alana and took her in his arms, kissing her right there and then in the doorway, apparently not caring if anyone was watching. Probably hoping for it, in fact, Wirt guessed, because there was something almost proprietary about the kiss. Spencer wasn’t just kissing Alana because he wanted to. He was doing it to show the world, and show Wirt, that Alana was his.

That hurt. It hurt not just because of everything that bubbled below the surface every time he saw Alana, but because Spencer felt the need to do it. There was a level of competitiveness there that Wirt couldn’t stand, his closest friend turned into a rival by it. Even as Wirt thought that, Spencer broke from the kiss and looked back at him with an expression that was clearly a challenge. Alana’s expression was harder to read. She looked at Spencer with something close to love, but that barely changed when she looked over at Wirt. Then she looked confused, almost apologetic.

Wirt didn’t think that Alana had anything to apologize for. She felt whatever she felt for Spencer; for him. The situation was terrible, but it wasn’t anyone’s fault right then. Wirt shook his head. That didn’t make him feel any better. The fact was that Alana was with Spencer, and right then, he couldn’t stand it. He wanted Alana more than anything, and he would do whatever he had to do to be with her.

Including killing Spencer? That was what it came down to, didn’t it? Wirt hadn’t thought that he could disintegrate his friend, but what about if that was the only way of being with Alana? What then? Wirt looked over at Alana, Spencer’s hand in hers as he held her. The truth was, he didn’t know.