The Apollo Academy by Kimberly P. Chase Page B

recognize.
    “This place is nova,” Hailen exclaimed. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
    Zane looked at her; it was the first time she’d shown any emotion other than superiority. Brianna and Kylie stopped, giving her a quizzical look.
    “I mean, of course I’ve been to some great training rooms, but this one is pretty cool.” Hailen shrugged her shoulders.
    Zane’s attention was pulled from the girls in front of him when his techiwatch beeped.
    1100 meeting with Ms. Lovell scrolled across his watch. Zane sighed.
    “Everything all right?” Akemi asked.
    “Yeah. I have my meeting with Ms. Lovell.” The meeting was supposed to be about his area of concentration and class schedule, but he knew his would be more than that.
    “Oh, okay.” Akemi looked at the girls as if asking what he should do about them.
    Zane sure as hell didn’t know, so he turned away from the girls who were still huddled together and began walking back to the elevator.
    Akemi ran to catch up. “So maybe when you’re done we can keep exploring?”
    Zane was new at this whole let’s-be-friends thing, but he felt himself nodding. “Yeah, I’ll catch up with you later.” Zane stepped into the elevator.
    He touched the tablet-sized screen and selected the sixteenth floor. The elevator door silently closed, locking Zane inside for his short ride up. He was always amazed by the swiftness of elevators as they accelerated up to speed and delivered a person to another location within seconds. It seemed like the elevator doors had just shut when they began to open again.
    He hesitated in the door of the elevator, preventing it from closing. He didn’t want to face whatever this meeting held in store for him. He wanted to hang on to his newfound life for just a few more seconds. It had been nice having enough food to eat. Last night he’d even slept on a real bed with a roof over his head.
    Shit. Getting into a fight with that security guard probably wasn’t the best way to make a good impression.
    The elevator asked him to step out of the way, so he had no choice but to move forward. He managed to return to his usual arrogant façade by the time he made it to Ms. Lovell’s office. When he walked into the room, Zane found Ms. Lovell and Dr. Stevenson already in deep discussion.
    Zane swallowed. What was Dr. Stevenson doing here? He thought this was just about his area of concentration.
    “Zane, please have a seat.” Ms. Lovell indicated the couch situated in front of her desk.
    Zane sat down.
    Ms. Lovell clasped her hands together and leaned forward. “Zane, I’m just going to get right to the heart of the matter. We wanted to meet with you right away because, quite frankly, you’re a special case.”
    Zane forcefully kept his face blank, anticipating the blow to come. Evidently the rumor of his unknown status was already making its way through the Academy, and he wouldn’t blame them if they changed their mind about accepting him.
    “When we took your retinal scan during your admittance test, we were alerted to your unknown status.” Zane made a move to try and explain, but Ms. Lovell cut him off with a wave of her hand. “Obviously we decided to give you a chance anyway. I’m deeply sorry for the misunderstanding that occurred with the guard yesterday.” She paused before dryly adding, “But I would appreciate it if you’d try not to resort to brawling if faced with a situation like that in the future.”
    Zane vehemently nodded his head; so far this was going in a much different direction than he’d anticipated.
    “We’d like to change your status, but we need to make sure it’s worth our efforts before we do. Once you’ve proven yourself at the Academy and graduate to astronaut status we would like to add you to the world retinal database. But only if you graduate.”
    “That sounds like an excellent plan.” If he had known this was how the meeting would go, he would have run to it.
    Ms. Lovell nodded as if she