THE ALIEN LANDS

Arcadia Academy let out for the last two weeks of December. At first, Cordelia wasn’t sure why she was so terrified about going home until she realized that it wasn’t home she was worried about. She was worried about trying to find Arcadia again that Director Ashman assured her that she had a program on her phone that would beam her back when she was ready to return. She was afraid of going back to the real world. Facing her friends and family knowing what she has access to.

During that first week, Cordelia, Christina and Stewart had to remain behind so that they can wrap up production on the movie which would come out in nine months. At least that is what Owen Townshed told them during that day. In the end, Cordelia decided to go home for Christmas week. This was going to be her first Christmas on Earth and it was special to her. When she entered the building where her parents stayed in their nine hundred and seventy-five-thousand-dollar loft in downtown Chicago. For a moment, as she entered the door, and the familiar home smell greeted her, an ambush of food smells nearly smacked her dead in her face. Her mother had taken up learning how to cook food on Earth and one of her favorite dishes was lasagna which she loved to death. Her parents, though were surprised at how mature she had grown in the few weeks that she had been away. Cleaning up her own room, putting away her own dishes, even doing the dishes something she would have never done before but allow the servants to help.

However, the spell did not hold. She didn’t want to stay. Something about her parent’s house was pushing her away and she couldn’t put her hands on what was driving her away. How could she go back to her little bedroom in Chicago with its dull red paint and the beautiful glass view of downtown Chicago and the snow falling on the ground. She had nothing to say to her well-meaning, politely curious parents who wanted to know how school was going. She couldn’t believe that her parents were giving her this much attention now that she was a university level student. She had to tell them about her first role in the move A Taste of Summer which was going to be coming out in nine months. They screamed out the top of their lungs so proud that she was going to be making a name for herself on Earth. Cordelia knew that they could not understand the world that she was now a part of. She wasn’t even sure if she understood it.

Cordelia came home on a Thursday. On Friday, it was the twenty-second, three days before Christmas. She texted Ingle and Lisa, and on Saturday morning they met down by the Chicago lake front which was Cordelia’s favorite place, except it was about the same distance from each of their homes in Chicago. There were not that many people out today considering that the temperature was ten degrees outside. The benches were clean, but had a little bit of snow on it from the previous day snow fall. Ingle joked that the condo that was being built had his name on it and that his dad just gave him one million dollars to start his life soon. He couldn’t wait to graduate from high school.

And Lisa--- something had happened to her best friend, her lifelong friend while she was away. Was she mad that Cordelia’s dream of becoming famous was only months away from happening? Was she seeing her clearly for the first time? No, her hair was longer now, gone were the curls that were so natural to her that Cordelia loved --- she bulked up since she left almost as if she had joined the military. Cordelia had never seen Lisa smoke before, she was smoking now like a serious habit. Even Ingle seemed different and more terrified of her. Cordelia observed them both coolly, her black skirt was something that you would not find on a Colonial world, but was trending on Earth.

That night, already wanting a chance to see what the author was thinking when they wrote the Mount Arm-Joy novels and stayed up until three in the morning participating in the novel the World beyond the walls, Cal, the main villain of the novel was written to be a terrifying villain. For the first time in her life, Cordelia participated in the novel from the antagonist’s point of view. She had run the novel so many times growing up, but she never ran the novel from the villain’s point of view. It was only then she realized that the clock in the house was the key to being transported to Mount Arm-Joy. She never noticed that detail before while the kids had to break the security code through the kitchen, there was a tall, black antique clock that the main villain used to transport to Mount Arm-Joy. That was the same clock she saw at Arcadia Academy. Cal was the leader of a large criminal gang who was convinced that Mayor Graystone was the leader of a secret army of soldiers who had the power to cross dimensions and invade other realms.

When she first participated in the novel, Cordelia thought the plot made no sense. From a scientific standpoint, crossing dimensions were impossible as far as she knew, but the novel’s author made it seem possible that with the right collection of equipment, and with the alignment of the planet’s orbit, you could open a portal to another dimension (Cordelia never notices how much Cal was obsessed with the clock and protecting it). In the end, Melios forms a private army strong enough to challenge Cal and defeat him, forcing him to flee from Mount Arm-Joy but that will come back to haunt Melios in the fifth and final novel where Cal returns for revenge.

Now that she had been to Arcadia Academy and knew something about acting, she could participate in the novels with a more critical eye. She wanted to know more about the technical details beyond the technology. The one thing she wondered in the first place was what role did the clock play on opening a gateway to another dimension? The clock was forgotten until the fourth novel when the Black Queen became obsessed with trying to find the clock. At the end of every novel, the children always had to return to the colonial system. Why couldn’t they have stayed so they could return when they needed to or find another way to get there without having to go to their grandparent’s house.

It was obvious that Celeron Belgrave had no theater or acting training what so ever. He never even visited the main Colonial Home world. He would admit that when he retired from writing Holo-novels. That was before the great crash of thirty-five years ago when nearly all the wealth in the system had been wiped out and it wasn’t until a young progressive politician stepped up to the plate and did what he needed to do to restore confidence in the colonial system. That politician was Cordelia’s father. Legend has it that during the economic downfall, the novels were what got most the citizens, though the worst period of Colonial history.

But the real mystery of The Iron Clock, endlessly analyzed by overzealous fans and slumming professors, lay in the final scenes of the novel. With the ticking problem taken care of and Melios sitting down to a feast fit for a Queen when who turns up to ruin everything she has worked for, the Black Queen who promptly declares war on Mount Arm-Joy.

Melissa is fourteen years old by the time the Black Queen shows up, a teenager who should be going out with the boys, making plans for her future, figuring out what she wants to do with the rest of her life. In the earlier books, she was a changeful character, whose moods swung from cheerful to block without warning. In the Hover-Bikers of Mount

Arm-Joy, the second novel she suffers from depression, having just gone through her grandfather’s death. It’s not long before she picks a fight with the younger, more dependable Se’tain her cousin. Some very Colonial yelling and wrestling ensues. Say what you want about her, but Melios can fight for a girl as Se’tain found out. Breaking away, her skirt untucked and nearly revealed her naked body underneath. Melios was the one who let her siblings know that she discovered how to transport to Mount Arm-Joy and she was the one who carried the heavy lifting while they did nothing. Mount Arm-Joy considered her a hero and treated her as such. But she made a mistake at the end of The Iron Clock when she stalks away into the dense Woods of Evil, weeping Colonial English tears.

In the next two books, she fights for her life. Melios discovers the Golden Prison far into the woods where she must rally the prisoners of the Black Queen together and unite them together. Many scholars found this installment dull and boring, the fifth book Uprising against the Black Queen had action throughout the entire novel in which the prisoners escaped and formed a pack against the Black Queen who was defeated by Melios and her family at the end (that made Cordelia think about Christina and her situation with her cousin.) Like most fans, Cordelia assume that Celeron Belgrave meant for the other children to vanish in the novel, but as he was writing Return of a Forgotten Foe, the final novel in the series there were no notes to make the ghostwriters come up with an ending for all the characters. Melios never got the proper ending she deserved either as during the battle with Cal, she vanished, never to be heard from again.

Cordelia thought that the answer might be in the book that magically appeared in her hands. Alien Lands: A Princess Discovers. It was long gone. She turned up the condo inside out and interrogated everyone in it, and by this point she had given up. Someone at Arcadia must have taken it or lost it. But who, and why? Maybe it wasn’t even real.

Cordelia woke up early that Sunday morning already in flight mode. She was spinning her wheels here. She had a new life that she was eager to get back to. Feeling on the barest level of guilt, she improvised an elaborate excuse for his parents ---, a trip, a trip to Vermont to visit their family, I know it’s last minute but could she please? Lying to her parents was something she was not proud of but that was how you rolled when you were a secret teenage up and coming actress. Cordelia packed at a rapid pace --- having left most of her clothes at school anyway --- and half an hour later she was on the streets of Chicago. She went straight to the garden. The last past she saw her manuscript and walked to the thickest part of it.

Cordelia ended up at the back of the fence, looking through it to a house that was under construction in the back of the neighbor’s yard. How could she have missed this last time? She thought the garden was a large forest, but now it looked small, looked different. For several minutes, she tramped around the broken trees, and plants that had been frozen looking as if her life had depended on it? She must be missing something, but she couldn’t think of what. The luck she had that day was not there. She tried to retrace her steps. Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be. The universe smacked her in her face like a boyfriend dumping his girlfriend for the last time.

Cordelia went to get a slice of pizza and reflect on the day, praying that no one from her father’s staff was in the area and would turn her in. She was supposed to be on her way to Grady’s, a relaxation resort in Vermont. She felt lost, she did not know what to do. It was all running away from her. She sat there in a both with her bags next to her starring at her reflection in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors. Do all pizza joints must have this? Guess that’s their way of making extra money. Then that’s when it happened, the transporter beam surrounded her and the light changed, the bare tile became polish stone floor and when she looked up from the paper again, she was eating her slice alone in the junior common room at Arcadia.

Without warning or some fancy ceremony, Christina and Cordelia were now officially second years in name and in paper. Classes met in a smaller room in the back corner of the house. It was sunny but Eastern Georgia was experiencing its coldest winter in years, and inside the tall, paneled windows were iced over. Cordelia noticed that the classes were smaller as they were second year student. Professor Tim Miller, an ancient and slightly older Jamaican with a cool accent and a passion for drama taught them modern acting for the twenty first century. The exercises were harder and the content more demanding but as she said acting is all about entertaining the audience and that is what they strive to do in their profession, entertain the audience. In the afternoon, they had Professor Alan Fench, a long-hair, blue-jawed Scotsman who was almost seven feet tall. They were going to learn how to write movies, write television shows and write plays. Something Cordelia had to admit was something she was always interested in.

There was no rush to embrace the two newcomers. The promotion had turned Christina and Cordelia into a class of two: The First Years resented them and the Second Years ignored them. Christina wasn’t the star of the show anymore, the Second Years had stars of their own, particularly Nancy Todd who was called on regularly to perform scenes which she had written for class. The daughter of a five-star Navy admiral, she did acting and added a bit of dramatic flair with her big hands, loud voice and did it in such a way that it made other students envious.

The other students deduced that Cordelia and Christina were friends and were going together, which was a strange way of assuming because they were so close together that they were lesbians. They were not lesbians, just good friends who had recently completed a movie together. They were more comfortable with each other since Christina told her the painful secret of her arrival at Arcadia Academy. That confession seemed to have transformed Christina: she didn’t seem that fragile all the time ----she did not always speak in that tiny, hushed voice, and Cordelia could make fun of her and she would return the favor. Christina was slowly coming out of her shell thanks to Cordelia. Cordelia thought that maybe her coming to Arcadia was so that Christina could be given the help and friendship she so desperately needed.

One Sunday afternoon, tired of being picked on and teased, Cordelia went and found her old lab partner Casey and dragged him out of the house for a walk. They navigated their way out through the Maze in their overcoats, wondering aimlessly with no destination in mind, neither of them very enthusiastically. The sun was out, but as it was still winter very cold. Cordelia could feel her skin freezing. The bushes were heavy with melting ice and snow was piling up. Casey was the son of a immensely wealthy Cuban American singer who wanted his son to follow in his footsteps but Casey wanted to write and direct, something his father disapproved of.

Somehow, on their way out to the river, a Second-Year Girl Name Molly attached herself to them. Molly was Blonde and short-legged and very thin, one of the first shows that Cordelia saw upon arriving here on Earth was a sitcom called Punky Brewster. Molly reminded her of Punky.

“Afternoon folks.”

Playfully Cordelia answered back, “It’s Punky.”

She wasn’t embarrassed about being compared to Punky Brewster. In fact, she used her charms to land a role in a fifth-year production play that was going to be starting in the spring.

They walked to the edge of the river, the three of them, the three of them, then stopped. Cordelia was starting to wonder if this was a bad idea. They were trying to decide which way to go, or what they were doing there or why. Molly and Casey barely knew each other. For a few minutes, they talked about nothing --- gossip, exams, teachers, Supernatural, the Avengers, Star Trek, comic books--- but Casey did not get any of the Second-Year references, and every time he missed one he felt his stomach sink lower. That afternoon pissed away the liquor from the body. Cordelia picked up a rock and threw it into the river.

“Walk over here guys.” Molly said finally, and struck off across the Maze at an angle with her stride, she covered a lot of ground for someone who doesn’t like to walk. Cordelia wasn’t sure if she should laugh or not. Eventually, they came to a gravel path, though a scrim of leafless trees into a small clearing. They were on the outer edge of the school property.

Cordelia had been here before. She was looking at Nichol on a Forbidden World which was their equivalent of Alice-in-Wonderland playing out right before her eyes. The lawn had been recently cut, she could smell the pollen trying to force itself up from the ground.

The grass squares were neatly trimmed, like a golf course. The skies were bright and the air was clean.

“What is this place?” Casey asked.

“What do you mean, what is it?” Molly said.

“Do you want to play?” Molly walked around to the other side of the field. She was then doing cartwheels having the time of her life.

“This is a game?” Cordelia said

Casey cut his eyes at her.

“Sometimes I don’t get you,” Casey said. “I know you’re not from Earth and I understand that, but there are some things here you’re going to have to pick up on.”

“Look,” Cordelia said, “I am the outsider here. I get it, I wasn’t born on Earth like the rest of you. But I’m still human and I’m trying hard to fit in here.”

“Come on, she has to learn at some point,” Molly said. “Give her a chance.”

“It’s a passion. Acting and playing games. It’s how we all unwind when things get to be too much.”

“I don’t get it?”

“Well, let me show you.” Molly took out a glass slide, technology that Cordelia recognized as coming from the Colonial system. A holographic chess board appeared in the sky.

“By the Lords of the Colonial, they made games with our technology?” Cordelia started jumping up and down like a kid high on sugar.

“Yes, and it’s becoming popular here on Earth. It’s called Chess. You ever played?”

“No,” Cordelia timidly replied.

“Girlfriend we’re about to teach you all kinds of neat stuff today.”

For five hours, they played holographic chess. Cordelia for a novice player proved to be a formidable challenger once she got the basics down. She enjoyed the game. A game that reminded her of Circles on the Colonial home world. Before the group knew it, dinner time was upon them and they had to return back to the house. It was taco night and everyone was going to be rushing to make it to the dining hall for the home-made tacos.

They walked back down the path in the direction of the Maze, not talking, just thinking about homemade tacos and munching on as many as they can stuff into their mouths. Cordelia watched the weather earlier that day, a cold front was approaching that called for an additional eight inches of snow to fall tonight. Cordelia got the feeling she had again that she experienced the week that the Colonial homeworld blew up and she found herself homeless for the first time in her life. A gang of rabbits patrolled the edge of the Maze. Cordelia never seen any rabbits before. That was the first time for her seeing that kind of wild life.

As they crossed the Maze, Cordelia found herself being quizzed about Damien.

“How long have you known Damien?” Casey asked.

“I don’t know him all that well, but he seems like a cool guy.”

“The rumors that are going around about you two being friends are not true?”

“One, I don’t know what the rumors are and two, Damien has his own friends that he hangs out with.” Cordelia was secretly proud to relate to Damien, even if they never spoke to each other anymore.

“Yea, I know.” Casey said, “The Comedy clique.” Casey sighed, “What a bunch of morons and assholes.”

“What do you mean, the comedy clique?”

“You know that whole clique. Franklin McCleoud, Josh Santos – those guys. They all do Physical comedy for their Disciplines.”

In the Maze their white breath steamed up against the darkness of the hedges. Casey explained that starting with the Third-Year students they must choose a specific acting topic to specialize in, or, more exactly, had it chosen for them by the faculty. Then students were divided into groups based on their specialties.

“It doesn’t matter that much, except that most of the time the people you like to hang out with will determine your Discipline. The Comedy clique seem to be the rarest. There jerks about it too because they know they got the gift and the talent to make people laugh. And anyway Damien, you know about him.

Molly raised her eyebrows and leered. Her nose was red from having been out in the cold. By now they had reached the terrace, and the pink sunset was smeared all over the glass of the house.

“What do you mean by that?” Cordelia said stiffly. “I told you I am not all that knowledgeable in the Damien gossip.”

“You don’t know?”

“Sweet Goodness!” In bliss, Moly put her hand on Casey’s arm. “I bet she’s one of Damien’s ---!”

Suddenly, the French doors opened and Stewart came striding quickly towards them, stiff-legged, his shirt a mess, no jacked on. His pale round face came looming as it hit the approaching darkness. His expression was blank, almost robotic like, and his walk gave off some interesting vibrations that Cordelia could pick up on. As he got closer, he looked at Cordelia and slapped her, in her face.

Fighting was almost unheard of at Arcadia Academy Students loved to gossip, it’s what they do. They would sabotage their acting assignments to get ahead, but actual physical violence was rare. Cordelia had only been on Earth now for sixteen months. She had seen fights in Chicago, but she wasn’t the type of person to get mixed up in them. She had protection from her father’s security forces when she went into town until she convinced her parents to let her start going out on her own. She wasn’t a bully and she was tall enough that she intimidated most guys. She didn’t have any siblings. She had never been slapped before.

This was a Kodak moment of Stewart’s hand, close and huge, like an asteroid close to the earth so many times before. The force of the slap caused a flash of light to explode in Cordelia’s left eye. It was a straight shot, and she nearly spun away and brought up her hand to touch the spot in the universal gesture of I’ve just-been-slapped-in-the-face. She was still trying to wrap her mind around what just happened. This time Stewart was going to hit her again, this time she ducked and Stewart missed.

“By the Lords of the Colonials!” Cordelia yelled, scrabbling to avoid the confrontation. “What the hell is your problem?”

Dozens of windows looked out as hundreds of eyes from the house descended on the ground below. Cordelia knew when she was the center of attention. The kids had never seen a confrontation like this in a long time and like most everyone else they wanted to find out what was going on.

Casey and Molly stared at Cordelia in sheer horror, their mouths open, as if what was happening was Cordelia’s fault.

“I think you earthers are so fond of saying this so I’ll say this and hope I get it right, what the fuck is your problem?” Cordelia shouted at him, more than shocked, more than hurt and looking for a staff member to come and stop this.

Stewart’s jaw was clenched, and his breathing was labored. There was saliva on his chin, and his eyes looked blood shot. It was almost as if Stewart was on drugs. This time, Stewart went for broke and was trying to do a roundhouse kick at Cordelia’s head, and remembering her defensive training classes, Cordelia cartwheeled herself to safety, ducking Stewarts attempts to kick her in her head. Reacting, she recovered enough to grab Stewart around the waist and keep him from falling.

They staggered back and forth like a married couple fighting for the first time, leaning on each other for support, then crashing into shrubbery at the edge of the steps to the front door. Cordelia was a couple of inches taller than Stewart, but she had the training thanks to her father’s generals and could hold her own in any fight but Stewart was made of solid material as they both fell over, Stewart on top.

The back of Cordelia’s head hit the stone terrace hard. She saw flashes of light in both of her eyes. She felt pain like she had never felt before but the fear she was feeling at the same time wiped away like shit from toilet paper. In their place, she kept feeling blind rage building.

They rolled over each other, both trying to get in a punch and grabbing each other’s arms so they couldn’t. Cordelia did not like to punch people but she had enough training from her father’s troops that if she needed to defend herself she could without any ease. There was blood: Stewart had a cut on his arm somehow. Cordelia wanted to get up. She knew how to do the equivalent of boxing on the Colonial homeworld. When in doubt, aim for the face and keep punching until you draw blood and keep hitting until your adversary falls to the ground. The words of the General that trained her was flowing through her mind like an uncontrollable river. She saw Molly wanting to join in ready to help if needed.

This time Cordelia was on top and had her fist ready for a good hard smack to the face when she felt strong arms encircle her chest and lift her back and up. With Cordelia’s weight of him, Stewart popped up on his toes, breathing hard, red running down his face but there was people between them now, Cordelia was being pulled backwards. The effects of the drugs worn off. The fight was over.

The next hour was a jungle of unfamiliar rooms and people leaning down to talk to her and earnestly dab at her face with rough cloths. An older woman with a beautiful smile and rosy red cheeks had been working on the four cuts Cordelia received from the fight. She put something cold that Cordelia could not see on the back of her head where it hit the stone terrace earlier. She was speaking in broken English but eventually the pain stopped.

She still felt a little off --- she wasn’t in pain, but it was like she was wearing a space suit, clumping in slow motion like actors doing a slow motion walk like in a Law and Order series, she saw the curious fish that was swimming in the fish tank that peered at her and then swam in the opposite direction. They kids her age looked at her face with awe --- her ear was swollen, and Cordelia had a monster black eye. Cordelia couldn’t understand why she was the target of Stewart’s outrage. She decided to roll with the flow. Cordelia attempted to laugh at the situation. For a moment, Damien’s face flooded her with a look of sympathy as it turns out it had been Damien and the Comedy Clique that had played a cruel trick on Stewart that sent him into a rage in the first place. They all apologized to her. As it turned out, Stewart was trying out for the Comedy clique and as it turned out, he got in. Cordelia wasn’t happy about that, she wished she had warning that was coming but it doesn’t work that way at Arcadia.

Cordelia had missed most of dinner, so by the time she sat down, they were just serving dessert, lucky for her, there were about twenty tacos left over that the kids were not interested in. Between Cordelia, Molly and Casey they divided up the remaining twenty tacos, which still smelled fresh. They waived the rule about late arrivals. She couldn’t escape the feeling that something big was coming. She still had not figured out what the fight was about or why Stewart went off on her. Did he really have to be an ass hole?

The tacos tasted so good going down her throat. She had about six of them on her plate, but the first bite of the German chocolate cake, and lemon pie tasted like sex on the beach, not that she’s had sex on the beach or tried the alcoholic drink that it was named after. After she ate, she got the sense that something was wrong. She was being drawn towards a room. She started walking up flights of stairs, not really understanding what was going until she felt the power of an unseen gravitational field gripped her tight and threw her up to the ceiling, as if a giant had grabbed her and threw her around like his play toy. Cordelia stayed against the ceiling for a good five minutes, struggling against the unseen force. Fear was gripping her now as she wondered why was this happening to her, eventually the field released her and she hit the floor down, with her weight, hard.

Cordelia woke up in darkness. She was in a bed, but not her bed. Her head hurt.

Woke up might have been exaggerating the situation. Her focus wasn’t sharp, and her brain had a tough time processing the situation. Cordelia knew that there was a place that students went to for medical attention. She did not know where it was. She passed through another portal but this time she was not on Earth. She passed through into the world of Kin-Zan, where the sick and the injured go to when they are ready to face the end of their lives.

A man was fussing over her, handsome nice big plump butt. She couldn’t see what he was doing, but felt his strong, rough fingertips moving over her skull.

She cleared her throat and tasted something sour.

“You’re the dead guy. You were the dead guy.”

“Uh-huh,” he said. “Past tense is better that was a one time and dare I say lucrative performance. Though I must admit learning to pretend to be a dead man was very challenging even for a dashing, good-looking actor like me.”

“You were there. The day I came here.”

“I was there,” he agreed, “I had to make sure you made it to the Audition.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I come here sometimes when I need additional training.”

“I’ve never seen you here.”

“I don’t like to interact with the students.”

A long pause followed, during which she might have fell asleep. But she opened her eyes again trying to make sense of the situation she found herself in.

“I love what you done with yourself. I heard you already completed your first movie, Owen Townshed?”

The man was no longer wearing the clothes he wore the day but this time he had a military style hair cut revealing a face that had aged with time. She thought he was younger before, but maybe that was the make-up and special effects that was being used. She wondered if the gravity of the situation had messed up her perception of things.

“The make-up I had to do was a bit much,” he said, “but the academy made sure I got well paid for it.

“Why did you agree to play a dead man? You scared the lords of Colonials out of me.”

“I didn’t mean to do that. I was doing a job and I got paid for it.”

“You also have medical training?” Cordelia asked.

“Yes, thanks to the money I’ve made from Arcadia over the years, I’ve got training in various disciplines because when you get out there in the real world, you never know if you are going to get a gig or not so I used Arcadia to enhance my job outlook.”

“I don’t know if I could do that.”

“If someone came to you and offered you ninety to one hundred thousand for a few hours work, you going to lie there and seriously tell me you’re not going to turn it down, in this economy?”

“You have a point there.”

“There we go, all done. No major injuries, but you need to take better care of yourself. We need you in great shape.”

Cordelia had rolled on her back again. Her pillow had grown cool while he worked. She closed her eyes. The man knew that a little bit of alertness would be in Cordelia’s mind. She still did not know the incredible chain of events that was ahead of her. She had a part to play but he couldn’t tell her what it was. He was there to witness history and document what really happened during this time.

“That book you gave me,” Cordelia said, “I think I lost it. I never got a chance to read it.”

In his depleted, borderline excitement of discover the loss of the Mount Arm-Joy suddenly seemed sad, a tragedy beyond all sense of reality. Cordelia started to cry as she really wanted to find out how everything ends.

“Hush child,” he said, “It’s not yet your time. The book will come back to you if you look hard enough and believe. That’s the key to your power, belief and faith. Trust on those instincts and you will be fine.”

It was the kind of thing that people always said about Mount Arm-Joy. He placed something cool on her burning forehead and she lost consciousness.

When she woke up again he was gone. But she wasn’t alone.

“You hit your head pretty hard there,” someone said.

It might have been that voice that finally woke her up. It had been calling her name. It was calm and familiar in a way she found comforting.

“Cordelia?” a pause, no answer, “Cordelia? Are you awake? Professor miller said you had a concussion.”

It was Stewart who looked worried and afraid and a little bit relieved at the same time. She could see the pale oval of Stewart’s face, propped up on pillows, across the aisle from her and four beds down.

“My stomach still hurting,” Cordelia said.

“I guess it’s because I hit you harder than I wanted to. I am so sorry for what I did to you. Crisp is something that is not to be toyed with.” All the crazy anger had washed out of Stewart. He was his normal self now.

“Crisp?” she said as she sat up, “I don’t know what that is.”

“It’s a hot new street drug that is drawing the attention of law enforcement all around the world. Some hot shot cop name Stella Jackson has been trying to bust up who has been filling the streets with the drug.”

“Why did you take it in the first place?”

“Crisp helps tune you in with your spiritual side. It helps you focus to bring out the best parts of your comedic stuff. It was sort an initiation test for me.”

A long silence passed. A cell phone buzzed somewhere. There was some uneasiness in the room which reminded her in the last Mount Arm-Joy book Return of a Forgotten Enemy, when Salina, the youngest of the Milios family members gets injured on a mission and has to spend a month in bed talking to a reformed Black Queen who was trying to make amends for everything she had done in the previous three novels. Cordelia had always like Salina. She was different from the rest of Melios family members and had an edge to her that made her likable then the rest of her family members.

Cordelia wondered what time it was.

“Arcadia has some of the best medical people on the planet and the technology that we got when your people arrived here last year has been helping the world in ways no one could have imagined.”

“I didn’t even know I hurt you that bad.”

Stewart was quiet again. Cordelia was now getting worried.

“Girl, you got some skills. I know that’s not a very Native American thing to say but I have never seen anyone fight with the determination that I have seen from you.”

“Thanks, my father wanted me to know how to fight in case our ship got attacked and boarded.”

“How did it happen?”

“Huh?”

“How did your planet blow up? That’s what they say on the news all the time. That your planet blew up.”

There was a glass of water on the bedside table. Cordelia noticed it was full of ice as she grabbed it and gulped it gratefully, munched on a few pieces of ice, and fell back on the pillow. Hot chains of pain flashed through her head. Whatever the actor had done, or whoever he was, she still had some healing to do.

“Well, I was very young when it happened, I just turned ten years old. That day, I was at a friend’s house on the colonial home world. When I got back home that day, there was a lot of activity in the palace. My dad told me to go up to the ship that was in orbit. My mom was there, it was only a few hours later that I learned all eight planets in the Colonial system. One billion people died and only five hundred thousand of us made it out alive. I understand that the people of Earth are working to establish a continent here on us for our people to settle on. Until then we’re all over the planet, trying to assimilate into this strange culture you have here.”

Cordelia poured herself another glass of water and gulped it down. She then took another huge bite of ice from the cup and fell back on the pillow.

“Are you telling me the crisp made you attack me?”

“Yes, crisp brings out the worse in humanity. I didn’t want to take any but if I didn’t my true comedic self would not come out.”

“You have to get violent to be part of the Comedic Clique?”

“Yes,” Stewart said, “it’s something of a tradition here at Arcadia. Crisp reveals your true comedic self. Guess I got a little too physical with you.”

“Is it going to be like this when I decide what Discipline I want?”

“No,” and by this time Stewart was ready to explain the true reason why he wanted to fight her, “You could have shown me a little respect. You and your girlfriend.”

“Girlfriend?” It was then that Cordelia realized who he was talking about. “Christina?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, come on, Cordelia. You sit there, you give each other the look, you laugh at me. Openly. I keep thinking that this must be a girl thing. I kept telling myself that repeatedly. Would you believe that I thought that was going to be just a tad bit fun? I wanted us all to work together? Would you believe I thought that?”

Cordelia recognized Stewart’s tone. Once on the Colonial homeworld, fifteen children and their families were given shelter out of the kindness of their souls. She didn’t like it at first but after her mother told her the reason why, she understood.

“Don’t be an ass hole,” Cordelia said. She didn’t see this as a rise-above-it all kind of situation. What was really on her mind was if Stewart going to come over and give her another injury? “Do you even know what you look like to the rest of the world? You sit there with your attitude. I’ve been there. I’ve seen people like that on my world. Those people are not with us today, do you honestly think people want to hang out with you behaving the way you are?”

Stewart was sitting up now.

“That night,” he said, “when you and Christina went off together. You didn’t apologize, you didn’t say good bye, you didn’t ask if I wanted to go, you two just walked out. And then, and then” he said proudly, “you passed? And I failed? How is that fair? How the bloody hell is that fair? What did you expect me to do?”

Now she was getting somewhere. She had true answers. “That’s right, Stewart,” Cordelia said, “You should have kicked me so hard that I risk having an injury and because you didn’t pass a fucking test. Why did you not hit Professor Branch while you’re at it, too?”

“I don’t take things well, Cordelia.” Stewart’s voice was very loud in the empty recovery room. “I don’t want trouble. But if you threaten my safety, I will give you twice what you dish out. That’s just reality talking. You don’t own things here. This isn’t the Colonial homeworld where you have servants kissing your privileged ass day in and day out. If you think you are going to walk all over me, Cordelia. You are going to be sorry you ever met me.”

They were both talking so loudly that Cordelia didn’t even notice when the recovery room door open and Dean Ashman came in, dressed in some silk pajamas and wearing a cap. For a second, Cordelia thought he was holding a candle before she realized it was Ashman’s raised index finger

“That’s enough,” Ashman said quietly.

“Director Ashman ---“Stewart began as if there was a voice of reason he could finally talk to.

“I said that’s enough.” Cordelia had never heard the Director raise his voice, and he didn’t now. Ashman was always a comedic goofball in the day time, but now, at night, wreathe in his sleeping gear, in the alien confines of the recovery room, he looked like a man you just simply do not want to piss off. “You’re not going to speak again except to answer my questions. Is that clear?”

Was that a question? To be safe Cordelia just nodded. Her head was hurting worse now.

“Yes sir.” Stewart said promptly.

“I have heard enough of this banting about like a married couple from Basic Instinct only not so much Sharon Stone involved. Who started this incident?”:

“I did,” Stewart said instantly. “Director Ashman, Cordelia didn’t do anything, she had nothing to do with it.”

Cordelia said nothing. That was the funny thing about Stewart. He was insane, but he did have moments of clarity, and he stuck with them.

“And yet,” Ashman said, “somehow your foot found its way into the path of Cordelia’s forehead. Will it happen again?”

“No sir.” Stewart said.

“No.” Cordelia simply said.

“All right.” Cordelia heard the springs chirp as Director Ashman sat down on an empty bed. He didn’t turn his head. “There is only one thing that pleases me about this afternoon’s little fact, neither of you were using raw emotions like hate and anger to justify your actions. Acting is a noble profession and one needs to be in tune with themselves physically and emotionally to be the best at what we do. But in time you will learn how to harvest whatever emotions. You need to keep your feelings in check because if you don’t get in character, the audience will pick up on it and whatever you are working on will be a disaster.”

Ashman regarded both with stern composure. Very dramatic, like a million-dollar director bitching at the cast of a very expensive movie. Where was the part where he told Stewart to stop acting like an ass hole?

“Listen to me carefully,” Ashman was saying. “Acting allows us the ability to transform ourselves into different people with different personalities. Normal people do not understand our craft. They get bored with their lives, and there is nothing they choose to do about it. They are eaten alive and they are dead by the time they figure out what is happening.”

“But you live in our world, and it’s a great gift. A wonderful blessing and if you want to get killed here, you will have plenty of opportunities without killing each other.”

He stood up to go.

“Will we be punished, sir?” Stewart asked.

Punished? Did he really ask that question Cordelia thought? We’re not in high school any more. Director Ashman paused at the door. He flipped the light switch off.

“Yes, Stewart, as a matter of fact you will be. Eight weeks of washing dishes, lunch and dinner. If this or anything like it happens again, you’re expelled. Cordelia---“he stopped to give what he was going to say careful thought. “Just learn to be more diplomatic if you can. I expect better from you. I don’t want there to be any more problems.”

The door closed behind him. Cordelia let out a depressing sigh. She closed her eyes, and the room drifted as she was ready to fall to sleep, she didn’t even care at this point if Stewart was in love with Christina.

“Wow,” Stewart said, apparently unfazed at the prospect of spending the next two months with dishes to do during lunch. He sounded like a kid who dodged a bullet. “I mean wow. Did you hear what he said about acting transforming us into different personalities? Did you know any of that stuff?”

“Stewart,” Cordelia said, “One you need to do something about your hair. And two, I don’t know if it’s a Native American thing or not, I don’t know if it’s where you come from, but if you ever do anything that could get me sent back to Chicago again, I won’t just give you a cut, I will fucking kill you.”