Conspiracies - Mercedes Lackey [105]
Still, you’d think there’d be at least one or two without the black snake … and one or two who didn’t make her skin crawl. But they all seemed to be out of the same mold—oh, not in the way that they looked, because they ranged from geeky nerds with thick black-rimmed glasses and rumpled clothing, through people who looked like career soldiers, to people like Mark Rider and Madison Lane-Rider—but in the intensity of how they looked at you. As if they were sizing you up, all the time.
And most of them were actually living here. The building crew already had dorm-trailers and they brought in more for most of the Alumns. The rest were in guest rooms in the same wing that housed the Infirmary and Doc Mac’s office. Mr. and Mrs. Rider were the only ones who weren’t physically at Oakhurst. From what Spirit heard through Muirin, there wasn’t a motel in Radial that suited their lifestyle so they were living out of two enormous and blindingly luxurious bus-sized RVs, one serving as their office complex (complete with high-speed wireless), the other (which had a hot tub!) as their “apartment.” The four geeks had taken over all of the old storage rooms in the gym and had filled them full of computers—and other things that looked sort of computer-ish, but which no one was allowed to look at too closely. The six army guys were out doing things on the grounds. They assured everyone that whatever they were doing would absolutely ignore anyone who belonged here at Oakhurst. And even though most of them carried at least sidearms, it was magic stuff they were doing out there.
With all of these people here, Spirit expected something big and magical, but in fact … the siege began quietly.
All the Gatekeepers-slash-Breakthrough employees began mingling with the students in the lounges after supper—or popping up and offering to help with something, generally in classes or training. Okay, Spirit thought, that kind of makes sense. We’re all living together here, so they’re just being friendly. Right? But she kept a very sharp eye on them anyway, and she started to notice how they’d ooze up to kids who were sticking loosely together. Then a couple of them would get one of the lot aside for something. A couple of rounds of that, and the kids who’d been as much friends as you could be here started keeping their distance from the others, and if anything, spending time with the Breakthrough people. (Which was kind of more eww because even the youngest of the Breakthrough people was over drinking age.)
Spirit waited, and sure enough, one night a couple of them moved in on Burke.
Except when they were getting together specifically for games or when Spirit was going out of her way to hook up with Muirin under the twin guises of “teach me about fashion” and “teach me about Combat magic,” Murr-cat was mostly still hanging out with Madison Lane-Rider. Burke, however, was sticking with the group while still radiating body language that said “I’m not sure I’m completely comfortable here.” Maybe that was why they zeroed in on him.
It was a couple of the military types, which really should not have been a surprise. Burke looked kind of like them, with his athletic build, his short hair, and his quiet and polite manner. She caught them talking to him casually between classes, murmuring earnestly. Then that night, they intercepted him at the door of the lounge, and pulled him off to the side.
She knew Burke pretty well by now, and it seemed to her that he didn’t like what he was hearing but was too cautious to show it. Much. As an experiment, she got up and headed in the direction of the kitchen for a juice. One of the geek-girls just happened to turn up at the open fridge just as she was reaching in.
“Hi, you’re Spirit, right? I’m Mandy.” The girl pushed her glasses up on her nose and got the same sort