The Academy

Author's Note

Yes. This is the final chapter. Sorry it took me so long, it's never taken me this long to finish a story before.

From here, I'll be taking my posting on lit more seriously. Eg finishing things before I post them. So breaks between stories might be longer, but you'll know you're getting a completed work in a reasonable amount of time. Read my profile for updates on my other stories in progress.

"I need to talk to Huyen," I said. "Alone. I need her released from your lab and her clothes returned." I also needed her firing on all cylinders.

"I need the antidote to the injections you just gave her too. I need you" -- I nodded at Mark -- "to hang around, just in case. And I need you" -- I nodded at David -- "to pull up the last..." I paused; I wasn't sure how long Lilly had been cooking the books for. "Say, the last six or twelve months' worth of records of girls bought or sold.

"And you" -- I looked back at Mark -- "why are you sniggering?"

"Not his girlfriend, huh?" Mark chuckled.

"You have a plan?" David asked, ignoring Mark.

I nodded. I didn't really, not a full plan. Not yet. But no benefit in admitting that now.

"What is it?" David asked.

I drew myself up to my full height. "I can't tell you yet, it would be dangerous."

"Oh fuck off!" David burst out and Mark laughed.

"Dunno bro, kinda like this one, ah?" Mark said with a shrug.

"Diam lah," David muttered to Mark before turning back to me. "Love, I know this game better than you, we need to talk this through."

"No, you need to trust me. Can you pull up the records?"

"Sure. But why?"

"Don't you trust me?" I asked

"I can't go into a fight blind. If I have a hope of winning, I need to know the plan."

"No. You don't trust me.

"Can you promise me I'll win?"

"No. But I'm pretty sure Lilly will lose, if that means anything to you."

"What's that your friend used to say?" Mark spoke up. "You know, you don't have to fight every battle, just make sure your enemy loses his? What was his name?"

"Wei." David's voice hitched. He blinked rapidly several times. Were those... tears? No, but almost. Mark's face was impassive, he was staring David down. "You remember his name. Damn you," David muttered. Mark knew what he was doing. Was he... helping me?

"I can't promise you'll win, because I don't know what you want." I said. "Because you're never honest with me, never straight with me."

"Fine. Ask now and I'll answer. Anything." His voice still sounded strained.

"If you could, and don't say you don't do do-overs, but if you could go back in time, would you still get involved with Lilly? And sex slaves?"

"Yes." The answer came quickly. My gut churned. "Why-- you love money so much you couldn't turn it down--"

"No love. I could make money on my own, without her. I was already. I could do bad things without her. I was already. But you. I wouldn't have met you without her. And I did meet you. And I did have you. Even though it was just a short time, it was worth it. If I could do it all again I would." The rawness in his voice could only be genuine. "And damn to anyone else."

Now it was my turn to blink.

"But, you do know, the whole sex slave thing is wrong... right?" I asked.

"Sure." He shrugged, his normal, cocky tone coming back. "So is most of what I did to make money before I met Lilly."

"Which is what?"

"Selling things I shouldn't..." he said with a grin.

I frowned.

"Things, not people," he clarified. "Mostly stolen or counterfeit goods."

"Okay, but that's not on the same level of... wrongness. Taking people's lives from them... using their bodies... that's wrong. On a base level of wrongness. That's not doing what you have to to survive, it's wrong. And everyone would agree with that.

David sorted. "No they wouldn't. Government wouldn't."

"What do you mean?"

"Government take your life from you. Use your body. For their gain. Same."

"How--"

"Many examples. NS. Steal two years of your life. But not only. Their mission is to change you. Mould you into something useful, something they can use. And if you get damaged in the process?" He shrugged. "Guys do. Shrapnel to the eye, loose vision. Damaged hearing? Ask any infantry man about that. And the rest of your life, government just tell you to put it on hold to go back for reservist training."

"How many times you been back?" Mark scoffed.

"Okay, that's Singapore, and not the same thing at all! It's important for a country to be able to defend itself--"

"Make one mistake and you'll swing," David muttered. A moment of... something... flashed across his face. Mark shuffled and looked like he was about to say something, but David continued. "Here too. Government makes laws about your body. No?"

"Laws about-- you mean like abortion laws?"

"That too I guess. But other laws too. Like drugs. Tobacco and alcohol? Legal. Other drugs, illegal. Break their laws, lock you up--"

"That's different! Detaining criminals--"

"And every girl here, but you, is a criminal." David snapped. "What sort of people do you think can be disappeared without people caring?" I remembered what Mark had said,

most of the girls here would have ended up dead on the streets if they weren't here. Except you.

"That's... but that's not the same thing--"

"You joined the academy straight after capture. Most girls don't. They need time being weaned off drugs first. You asked about the amnesia pills? Used to remove recent memories. Many girls can't remember how shitty their lives were before being brought here."

"But... but... that doesn't make it right--"

"No love, it doesn't. It's wrong, just like many other wrongs you accept."

"I..."

"No one is free. Everyone gets used by someone. It's just your own morality that says a life of sex is worse that a life of prison or hard labour. Or death." In a philosophical debate, he might have had a choice. But this was the real world. And he had traded sex slaves. I couldn't let him get under my feelings again and deter me from my plan.

"So, you don't want to give up the sex slaves? Because you're bitter about what your government did?" I spat.

David chucked. "No, love."

"But before, when you asked if you'd win, you meant you keeping the academy, didn't you?"

"No, love."

"Then what? What do you want? Ideal world, you can have anything you want, what is it?"

"You. If I could walk away from this with only you, I would. The academy, my life, my money. I don't need it. Well," he grinned, "money's nice, but I can start over, I

am

a genius, after all. But it's not going to happen. If anything else, the Russians would hunt me down. And you, if you were with me. And you?" He looked at me expectedly.

"What?" That wasn't the answer I expected. Was he genuine, or just trying to butter me up so I'd tell him my plan so he could twist it to his purpose?

"What do you want? Really? You want me to open the front door and let you walk out? I will, if you ask it, I can't guarantee your safety once you leave, but--"

"You never offered me that before!" I snapped. Was he really offering it now? Just to walk away? From recent events, I knew that at least some politicians knew about and were covering up the academies. Walking away and fronting up at a police station wasn't a sure bet of freeing all the girls, and I had made that promise to Huyen.

"Did. But with a catch," he muttered. "But, for the most part, it's because you've been safer here than out there. Now? Here's not safe. Especially if the Russians find out Lilly's bargaining chip. If they do, here won't be safe for anyone. We need to stop them finding that out at all cost."

"What do you think they'll do if they find that out?"

David shrugged. "Lock the doors, turn on the gas, light a match?"

"You think they'd kill everyone!?"

"I think they'd destroy any evidence which could be traced back to them."

"But people--"

"Are evidence. So, what do you want? And what's your plan? Or," a bitter note struck his voice, "Don't you trust me enough to tell me?"

"I need to work out a few finer points, and for that, I'll need to speak to Huyen. There were still a few things I didn't make out. She'll tell me now we know about the politician. Get the records, we'll talk then," I stalled. "Now go."

I stepped into the lab holding a pile of clothing and a pill David had assured me would counteract the effects of the injections he'd given her. Huyen was still tied naked to the table, shivering slightly. I'd asked David to let me speak with her alone, so the guards released her and left.

"He said if you didn't speak he'd torture you," I said, passing her the bundle of clothing.

"Well, let him. What is this, you being good cop?" Huyen sat up and started putting on her bra.

"I didn't want him to hurt you--"

"Yeah, I know." There was a bitter note to Huyen's voice. "But while you don't want him to hurt

me,

you also don't want

him

to hurt me. You don't want to see him as evil." She pulled on her shirt. That struck a nerve.

"I'm just trying to get through this, same as everyone else!"

"No, you're special." She hopped off the table and pulled on her pants and I tried not to get worked up about being called special. No point getting angry with someone for telling the truth.

"Yeah, but like you said, that gives me power. I convinced him to wait while we analysed the recording."

"And?" Huyen wiggled a leg into her jeans.

"Well, we cleaned it up and heard what you were saying."

"There you go. You know. And you know why I did what I did."

"You thought if you killed her, then she wouldn't be able to get word back to the politician, and we'd all be rescued by the authorities."

"I did agree to help you. That's helping you. That's helping all of us. Except him." Her eyes narrowed. "You got a problem with that?" Well, I shouldn't. But... best not think about that now.

"How do you know she was telling the truth about the politician though?"

"Did you listen to the conversation afterwards?"

"There was still a bit we couldn't make out. I heard her say, "why did he tell you that? But didn't hear what you'd said directly before that, or what she said after."

"I asked her if it was true that she was the one who'd tortured me. She was so surprised he'd told me she couldn't hide her reaction. Then she guessed that I must have been sent to spy for him and muttered it didn't matter if he knew her bargaining chip early. So I figured she must have tortured me and deserved to die anyway."

"It also indicates she planned on using the bargaining chip. But what if you had killed her? You could really live with that?"

Huyen shrugged. "Why not?"

"Well, you know, it's a pretty big thing to do? Like, even if the person

is

evil. Most people might at least have a moral qualm?"

"Guess I'm not most people?"

"Well, most people don't carry a knife and zip ties in their handbag," I joked, trying to lighten the mood. I passed her the pill. "Take this, it will reverse the injections. Huyen took it and looked at it a moment, like she was trying to decide if to take it or not. But then she put it in her mouth and swallowed it dry.

"I-- Since I ran away from home. Things are tough out there, you know?" Hyuen's voice was soft, and there was a small hint of pain running through.

"Yeah..." I thought of my own circumstances. A background of privilege and wealth, yet no clear path or future. "Worse in here, though. What you got planned, when you get out?"

"When?" Huyen raised her eyebrows. "I like the when." Her spirit was back in her voice.

"Yeah. Gotta think positive, right?"

"I guess, go crawling back to France, to see if I can still claim my trust fund?"

"You're an adult now, so there shouldn't be any issue with it going directly to you, right?"

"I honestly don't know. If I could, it would be nice to help young people. Maybe help them not end up like... anyway. What about you? If you could, would you leave

him

?"

"I-- I really don't know what I'd do, I had no real life plans before coming here." Nor money either. I remembered David saying Daddy had never intended on leaving me out of the will. Would there be a chance of contesting the fake will and getting some of that back? I didn't seem likely, not without David's help.

"That's not exactly the question I asked, is it?" Huyen raised her eyebrows. No. It wasn't. But I didn't want to think about that too hard. I might not like the answer. "Well?" Huyen prompted.

"Sure." I tried to sound casual, and not think about the declaration David had just made to me about wanting nothing else but to live, and to have me. "I mean, there's plenty of men out there, right?" But somewhere inside me felt suddenly empty at the thought of never seeing that smug fucker again.

"Somehow I don't believe you," Huyen said.

"Damn him," I muttered.

"And you don't believe you either. That's a problem."

"Meaning?"

"Well, let's say you plan to save us all, and the solution involves leaving him, or killing him. You think you can go through with it, but then at the last minute--"

"Okay, I get it." Huyen was right. I needed to know my own mind. What was that Mark had said? Know your enemy. Or, at least in my case, know if he was actually your enemy.

"Well, you better figure it out soon, because our best bet now is to kill Lilly." Of course that would still be her plan. Kill Lilly before she could make a deal with David, the authorities would sweep in and we'd all be saved. All of us. Except him. My face must have changed because Huyen said, "See?"

"Yeah. Yeah, but no. There's something you don't know." I told her the development with the Russians, and about what David thought they'd do if they found out about Lilly's blackmail. "If David sees Lilly dead, then he'll know there's no way for her to inform the politician, and it might put the rest of the situation in jeopardy."

"That complicates things a bit." She agreed. "If I were the Russians, I'd destroy the evidence too. Do you think David would do that? Burn the place down, escape, hope the Russians thought he was dead. Take you with him maybe, because--"

"I'm special. Yes. And... I don't know if he would. He... his sense of right and wrong is a bit..."

"Warped?"

"Yeah."

"I know killing Lilly is a risk, but so is leaving her alive. You got a better plan?"

"Half-formed only. But there's two parts to it."

"Does it involve saving

him

." I squirmed under her glance.

"It's the pill which made me think of it. Lilly's one, you know, amnesia or death, we weren't sure which." I walked over to David's cupboards and opened one. "David said that they use amnesia on most of the girls that come here, that they often wipe their recent past." I started searching through his cupboard, being careful to put things back where I found them. David was the sort to notice things out of place, and I didn't want to raise his suspicions. But the labels of the jars and bottles didn't make sense to me. I sighed, closed the door, and started looking through drawers.

"I can speak a bit of Russian, which I think means the Russians will talk to me. I can negotiate. Show them Lilly double-crossed them and was diddling the books. Then, maybe I can show them that David is loyal to them, but that he has a better business proposition with willing girls. So he can--"

"Get out of the business of slaves without risking them eliminating him?" Huyen asked, eyebrow raised. "And just what do you think they'll want to do with all the girls here now? What are you thinking? Offering to amnesia everyone and set them free? You think the Russians would trust that?" I stopped hunting in drawers and turned back to Huyen.

"No. The amnesia drug isn't for us, it's for Lilly. And no, I won't propose David gets out of the business of slaves. I'll offer it as a 'as well,' 'more money, good for you.' Like an extra incentive to choose David, on top of Lilly double crossing them. Meanwhile, you need to hit Lilly with the Amnesia drug. We'll need to work out how much to give her to wipe recent memory. So she trusts you again and, if we're lucky, not even remember the politician she left the letter with." I turned back to the drawers. The next one I opened was full of notebooks. "Oh, this might be useful."

Huyen came across and looked. The drawer was full of notebooks full of handwritten notes in various languages.

"Russians leave, then the politician's men swoop in?" Huyen asked as we flipped through the notebooks.

"Yeah. Timing will be a bitch. Could go wrong, if we don't get the Russians to leave early enough."

"And why will Lilly need to trust me?" Huyen asked.

"Because,"

You. If I could walk away from this with only you, I would.

David's words arose in my mind. I pushed them down. "Because, you'll need to convince her to lie to David. Pretend she hasn't been hit with amnesia, and that she's sent word to the politician."

"So that David will be unprepared and arrested when the politician's men swoop in?"

"Yeah." I took a deep breath. "He knows what he's done is wrong. He made his choices. He's responsible for his choices." All were things he'd said to me. He could face the legal system and I tried to pretend that I didn't feel a twist of guilt in my gut. I tried to focus on the notebooks. They were records of experiments and trials. Dosages and effects. No simple

Use drug ABC to wipe X days worth of memory

but, with study... we only had until 8am tomorrow, less than 12 hours away.

"How do I hit her with the amnesia drug? You gonna convince David to let me near her?"

"Remember when I said the plan was only half formed?"

"Great."

"But, a start might be seeing if Mark will help."

"You think Mark will help? Didn't you say he's his best buddy?"

"Maybe. He is, but he said something earlier to David which put his guard down. Kinda seemed like he was helping me. At any rate, he hates Lilly. If we can bill it as for David's own good--" There was a sharp knock on the door. I stuffed the notebook back in the draw, slammed it shut and turned around just in time for the door to burst open to reveal David, Mark and Geoff.

"Love, the Russians are here," David said.

"Here? Now!" I thought we'd have more time.

"Fuckers came early. Warned me enough in advance to make us sweat, not long enough to give good time to make a plan."

"Geoff, take me to them, and take us to somewhere we can sit down and talk," I said, assuming an authority I didn't feel.

"Love, no!" David said.

"Are those the records?" I nodded at the folder he carried under his arm.

"Yes, but, love, you don't know this game."

"You're worried I'm going to throw you under the bus," I snapped.

"I'm worried about you. And, also, I don't want to end up dead either. You couldn't promise I'd win, remember?"

"Because I didn't know what winning was to you. You not dead, and you have me. That's what winning is to you?" I asked. "Really, that's all?"

"

All?

" he asked. "You mean, I shouldn't consider the latter unattainable?" He reached out and touched my hand softly. Urgh. Did he have to twist my gut acting all lovey-dovey?

"Why do you want me so much?" I asked.

"You don't know? Truly?"

"Truly."

"Because I'm a fucking idiot." He moaned. Mark snorted a laugh.

"Everything on the line, and that's the best you can do?" Mark asked.

David shrugged.

"What will it take for you to trust me?" I asked.

"What will it take for you to trust me? What do you plan you don't want me to know?" he countered. "What could be so terrible that you can't tell me? What? My death? If that, then why

would

I help you? If not, then you need my help."

He was right. I didn't know this game. All I knew was two things he didn't. Was

know your enemy,

enough to get me through? Should I confide the part with the Russians and use his knowledge to make sure I was on the right track? No. This whole bloody time he'd had it over me. He'd been in charge, in power. Huyen had asked me if I could walk away from him, once this was done. And... I wanted to. I bloody fucking wanted to. But... could I? If it came to it, and I couldn't, then I needed to be meeting him on equal measure. The only way I could do that, was to take charge now. To be the one in power, for better or worse.