Admissions 1.1: At the Mercy of the Winds (Cylus)
Welcome to Europa University: Admissions! (for story level intro and content notes please see my introductory post :)
Thanks for being here, and I hope this story can bring you some queer joy in these strange and trying times!
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"I'm not saying we can't do this, Cylie. I'm saying you should have asked me."
Cynthia sprawled flat on one of the two narrow hotel beds, eyes closed and one pale hand picking at the corner of the white bedspread. She could have been mistaken for half-asleep. But to Cylus, the hurt and anger between her uninflected words could not have been louder if she'd shouted them.
He wished she would. Wished she'd fight him, like she was always ready to fight anyone who threatened them. But she wouldn't even spar with him when they were quarreling, and he knew better than to try and bait her.
So Cylus paced, looking away from his twin to stare through the window. The view should have been unexceptional, a straight look at the building across the street below. But even the simplest of Europa City's spires were polished to an icy sheen, and so he stared into a hall of urban mirrors: that building reflecting this one and back again, and again, and again.
Which was how it felt trying to talk to Cynthia sometimes.
"You said you didn't care where we went next. I thought you wanted to see Europa." She'd actually been excited when he'd told her their next destination.
Before, of course, he'd shared his reasons for coming here.
"I want a lot of things. A cat. A permanent address. Some decent tea." Behind him, an abrupt rustle of fabric suggested Cynthia's restlessness. "You could get me some, instead of telling me I agreed to something I didn't."
"I'm not—" Cylus gritted his teeth, turning back towards her. She'd rolled away from him, too-thin shoulders hunched beneath the disarray of her platinum hair. Guilt lanced through him; she never showed her back to anyone but him. "You could at least read the packets, just to see—" he gestured towards the table under the window where he'd set out the University's materials for prospective students, even as he realized she couldn't see him.
"It's Windfall, Cylie." Her voice could have been a wall. "I don't care how fancy their university is."
"That's why—" He paused. Breathed. "That's the point, Cyn. These IDs are the best we've ever had, and they're completely fresh. We have a chance to get inside them, and build a real history that no one will question. We can have lives, not just a series of jobs and shows. We can have somewhere to stay! And when we're ready, we can finally hit them back, from the inside—"
Cynthia sat up, a quick, fluid motion that left her facing him, legs folded under her as she claimed his gaze. "If the IDs are so good, we could go anywhere." Her fists balled in her lap, voice finally rising. "Getting into Windfall's special school won't change anything that matters. All it does is put us in danger."
"I wish you would just think—" He regretted the words as soon as he said them.
"Thinking's your job." Her eyes bored into him, bright periwinkle that matched his own. "Isn't it? That's why you brought us here without telling me why. You know I'll follow your lead, so you decided for both of us. And you're right." Her voice wavered. She turned away again, back ramrod straight as she clutched the bedspread. "So go figure out the next step of your grand plan."
"Cynthia—"
"I need a nap." With a precise kick, she levered herself under the covers, pulling them up with a snap and muffling her next words beneath synthetic down. "Leave me alone."
The city was beautiful, in a remote way. The materials he'd read on the passenger ship said the buildings' design was inspired by some of the first missions to Europa, which had found fields of glittering ice spikes. When Windfall took ownership of the world hundreds of years later—as part of their "charitable oceanic conservation mission", a naked public relations move that had won exorbitant but publicly unacknowledged trade concessions from Earth—they had modeled their city on those same striking vistas, reflected onto a much grander scale.
So as he walked along heated stone sidewalks, he was surrounded by tapering towers that could have been made of ice themselves. In reality they were some kind of flexible glass, able to withstand the tidal pull of Jupiter and its many other satellites without disruption. The low Europan gravity allowed for the buildings to reach dizzying heights; though the ground and interiors were kept at Earth-standard grav, just like any other civilized place in the Terran systems.
A group of what had to be university students stumbled past him, laughing and drunk. Rich, well dressed, carefree; like he and Cynthia should have been at this time in their lives, if the world had any justice in it. He could have picked any of their pockets without even making an effort. But the streetlamps all bore the visible eyes of cameras between fluted light fixtures, and the absence of visible security staff was its own statement. Wealthy people, in his experience, preferred their police forces unseen unless needed—but that didn't mean they weren't close to hand, ready to pounce on any perceived disturbance to their pristine streets.
And he wasn't here for that kind of theft. He'd brought them to Europa for exactly one thing, so they never had to steal or busk or beg ever again.
He turned, following a flash of dark greenery down a side street. Rich people also liked parks, and so did Cylus; chances were he could find somewhere to tuck mostly out of view of cameras and collect himself. Then he would find Cynthia some tea and pastries, and maybe by the time he got back she would have at least started to forgive him.
The park was small but pleasant. A steaming fountain radiated warmth from its center, surrounded by unfamiliar vegetation in well-maintained planters. After a short walk around the fountain to assess the likeliest sightlines for security cameras, he chose a bench set back beneath a scaly green bush. It wouldn't have been a safe place to sleep: European security must periodically patrol public places like this. But he could sit here undisturbed for a moment and try to center himself, get his bearings again.
Overhead, lightly obscured by the sheltering foliage, Jupiter loomed above the forest of towers, half-full and smaller than he'd expected from its prominence in the shipboard brochures. He'd thought it might fill half the sky, but he could block it from view by holding his fist a small distance from his face.
It was nevertheless dramatic, a hemisphere of swirling clouds mesmerizing enough that he resolved to remember them next time he was doing a hypnotic induction. They'd make a good visualization, especially here; he couldn't imagine living on Europa for any length of time without getting lost in them. The famous red spot was nowhere to be seen, but smaller vortices curled between bands of rust-orange and milky white. Sol was a distant spotlight low in the sky, beaming cool brilliance that cast long, wan shadows. Some other moon hung between it and Jupiter, a small silvery segment.
The dome between the city and the blackness beyond was a barely visible shimmer, protecting them from a bombardment of radiation and debris that Europa's thin atmosphere would do little to deflect. Or so the brochures had said. Cylus had read them over and over as Cynthia slept through the journey, distracting himself from dreading the exact conversation he'd just had.
He should have just told her. But he'd known she'd hate the idea, had thought that if they just made it here first, then maybe... His hands, unthinking, sought familiar shapes in his pockets and began to fidget, soothed by familiar motions and sounds.
He just needed a little more intel. The fake IDs they'd bought—years of carefully hoarded savings while they performed and pilfered and slept in cargo containers and unsanctioned ship-hull hideaways and portside squats—would be enough to apply to Windfall's elite university. They even came with academic histories and letters of recommendation and records of accomplishments appropriate to the privileged youths they would become. But he needed to know more about the application and interview process: not just what Windfall shared online, but what the experience was like from someone who'd been through it. It was there that his whole plan could founder. The wrong attitude, the wrong reference, the wrong word could ruin everything, and send them back on the run, their precious new identities misspent and worthless.
"Hey, what're you doing?"
Cylie's breath caught as he looked down to his hands. They were occupied, by pure, anxious habit, with two tactical-glass butterfly knives, halfway through a pattern of intricate folding and unfolding. Eyes darting up, he assessed his unexpected watchers. Another group of students, he guessed, half a dozen boys as drunk as the ones he'd passed earlier. The apparent leader, a tall white fellow with dim blond hair and new-looking clothes, had fixed him with an expression of suspicious interest.
There was no way these knives were street-legal here. He'd only gotten them through the layers of ship and port security with the benefit of long practice and their unusual materials. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Cynthia would never have made this kind of mistake.
He closed the knives with a snap, smiling broadly. "Why, just practicing some tricks! I'm a performer, you see."
"What, like the Masked Parade?" The tall boy moved closer, several others near behind him.
Cylus did not wince; no need to discuss his own history with the Parade. Most everyone knew of the traveling fleet of entertainers, which made it a convenient point of reference. "Yes, exactly."
"Huh. Show us something, then."
"Of course!" Stand back, he almost said; but that would be tantamount to admitting his weapons were real, and that seemed like a dangerous idea. So instead he opened his knives and did a quick, casual helix while remaining seated on the bench. Maybe a bit of nonchalant flash would convince them and put them off, though he wouldn't have placed a bet on it.
Most of the others looked at least a bit impressed; one, a short, soft-looking brown youth with sea-green hair, displayed open fascination, stepping closer even as the rest shifted back.
The leader didn't give ground either way, affecting boredom. "That all you've got?"
Cylie's thoughts raced, seizing and discarding ideas as he summoned his performer's smile. "Certainly not. Why, I've got some fantastic new tricks I've been meaning to try out with an audience member, actually. Would one of you like to volunteer?"
The short brown person stepped forward again. A boy, though Cylus would have guessed otherwise from his build alone. His gendermark earring had the same shape as Cylie's, an upward-pointed triangle with a circle encompassing the topmost point. But where Cylie's mark was a simple silver stud in the customary left lobe, this boy wore a dangling golden triangle crowned with a circular green gem. His eyes were the same bright color, wide and eager beneath a pair of fine golden spectacles. "I will!"
The leader rolled his eyes. "Yeah, you do that, Emile," he sneered, not bothering to disguise the disdain in his voice.
Anger smoldered. Cylus couldn't be angry with Cynthia; but he could feel whatever he wanted towards this smug young man. The sudden desire to see fear in his eyes sparked a dangerous hunger in Cylus' stomach.
He turned his attention to the soft youth—Emile—as the boy moved closer with a nervous smile. "Hi," he said, his voice a gentle alto. "How can I help?"
A little more intel... Cylus pushed extraneous thoughts away. Double checking for nearby cameras, he stood and met Emile's smile with his own, turning up the wattage until Emile's cheeks darkened with a blush. "All you have to do..." Cylus tucked one knife away and placed his empty hand on Emile's shoulder, positioning him between Cylie and the other boys. "Is stay very, very still..." Cylus unfolded his other knife with a weighty click, holding the point a careful distance in front of Emile's face. "And keep your eyes on this." The flush on Emile's cheeks spread down his neck; Cylus suppressed a sudden urge to press closer, to place his lips next to the boy's pierced ear and make his earring flutter. "Can you do that for me, Emile?"
"Yes," Emile exhaled. Several of the boys snickered. Emile remained unmoving, only the softest sigh suggesting that he'd heard them.
Cylie began to trick, rolling the knife open and closed, open and closed, around and above his hand, short tosses into the air; all a safe distance from Emile, but near enough that the other boys behind the blond-haired leader started exchanging glances.
"Now imagine, if you will," Cylus said, pulling from one of those inflight brochures, "That you are a cloud in the Jovian atmosphere. You are surrounded by ceaseless storms and shifting pressures, pushing and pulling you this way and that, this way and that..." He wove a slow-building cadence of words through the soft, rhythmic clicks of the tacglass knife as it folded and unfolded. His other hand gripped firm on Emile's shoulder, feeling its warmth against his palm. "Spiraling... swirling... ebbing and flowing... twisting and turning... at the mercy of the winds around you." His blade sped faster, ever faster; a whirlwind of glass to cover his rising panic. Why had he chosen this analogy? Everything he knew about Jupiter's atmosphere he'd learned less than forty-eight hours ago. But he was in it now; nothing for it but to keep his voice and blade in motion. "Cyclones, jet streams, ceaseless circulation..."
Emile's body relaxed under Cylus' hand on his shoulder. A glance at the rest of his audience found their eyes wide; falling, finally, under his spell. Even the leader was quiet, eyes fixed on the movement of Cylie's knife.
In an alchemic instant, Cylie's panic transmuted into confidence, the unshakeable certainty that had bluffed him through countless performances, and out from gunpoint more than once.
He had this. He had everything he needed right here.
"You find yourself pulled inward, into an oncoming storm. You are spun, swept, stretched, swallowed. You fall inward, ever inward, unable to resist." Faster. Faster. He usually used his knife trainers when working this fast. A single wrong motion and he'd lose a finger, along with everything else he was fighting for in this makeshift performance.
But he wasn't afraid. Exhilaration flooded him, adrenaline beating through his veins. He surrendered to his earlier impulse, shifting closer to Emile, the easier to keep him steady. Or to feel him. The boy's back pressed against his chest; a perfect fit. "And then, at the center of the storm, for a single instant, you are..." He leaned in, close enough to inhale Emile's scent: an understated botanical perfume whose elements he didn't recognize.
Brushing the shell of Emile's ear with his lips, he laced his whisper with command: "Still..."
Emile's breath stopped, his body perfectly motionless.
"Until—" Cylie's blade slashed.
Red erupted.
The group of boys staggered back, gasping and cursing, the blond boy nearly tripping over one of his fellows.
"You are lifted anew!" Cylie concluded with a showman's finality, using a flick of his knife-hand to swirl the red silk scarf he'd conjured during his false strike. "And the dance begins again!"
He'd intended to step out into a flourish, but Emile had slumped back against him, trembling. So instead he shifted sideways, sliding his empty hand from Emile's shoulder down to his waist, suddenly aware of soft curves beneath fine cloth. Bracing Emile's back, he guided the lad into bowing alongside him.
When Cylus straightened, Emile stayed bent.
Well, that was fine. Cylie dropped the red scarf across the back of the lad's neck, ends trailing long to either side, tracking the other boys' eyes as he reinforced the frightful illusion he'd evoked. "So! Who wants to volunteer for my next trick?" He beamed, locking gazes with the leader of the little pack.
"Nobody," the boy spat with unconvincing derision, still backing away. "We've got better things to do than humor some random Parade knock-off." As they retreated, Cylie's triumph and relief were soured by irritation: at the boy's jibe, but far more at his own receptiveness to it.
He clamped down on the knot of emotion. For all he knew, they might be off to report him to the nearest security officer, and he didn't want to have to stash his knives to avoid confiscation. It was time to be elsewhere.
His eyes flickered to Emile; still bowed and scarf-draped, knees trembling. "You can stand up now, you know," Cylus said, tucking his knife back up a sleeve. "And your friends left in a quite a rush. You might want to hurry if you're going to catch up."
"Oh," the boy said, straightening at last, cheeks still flushed dark. His speech was slow, still half-entranced. "They're not my friends. l mean, I don't think they are. I only just got here a couple days ago, we're all starting at the University, and my sister said I ought to make some friends. So I asked if I could go with them after convocation. But they weren't... Very nice."
Cylus reached out to reclaim his scarf, studying Emile's face as red silk slid free. The trace of melancholy that had marred Emile's dreamy expression smoothed, and a shiver passed through his body.
Interesting.
Cylie murmured something conciliatory and reached out, making to adjust Emile's outfit as though the scarf had tugged something awry. There wasn't much to straighten; just a small pair of lapels crowning a tight-buttoned vest that flared at the waist, panels angling down to his knees, over a billowy, cream-white shirt—real silk, judging by the feel.
Emile relaxed into the gesture, and Cylie took advantage of the opportunity to examine him more closely, fussing performatively with the rest of the outfit. The waves of his soft, sea green hair were shot through with deeper blues, expensively dyed or permacolored. His gold-and-emerald mark hung from a lobe still swollen, perhaps with recent piercing. His outfit complimented his hair, featuring similar blues and greens. Soft trousers with damask panels of green vines embroidered up the outsides were cuffed mid-calf to reveal tight, cream-colored stockings and tooled leather shoes. Besides the notable earring, he wore a wide bracelet studded with stones that Cylus recognized with a start as sapphires.
It was unlike any clothing he'd seen on Europa so far; or ever, really. It was archaic, and flamboyant, and it screamed of wealth and a sheltered upbringing.
There might be something more to gain here. He wished now that he'd changed into something besides his plain gray travel clothes; but Emile's expression held only guileless interest.
"Well, what a coincidence!" Cylus refreshed his smile, noting Emile's deepening flush with satisfaction and no little pleasure. "I'm looking to make some friends myself. Emile, was it? I'm Cylus, but my friends call me Cylie. Do you happen to know any good places where I could get a bite to eat?"
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