Chapter 48: Why would you even want a pet?

The mutor in the sky was still just floating around and it did nothing. There was a person on top of that thing. She was probably a woman but they were pretty high in the air for me to make out anything more. I'd never heard of people riding mutors before. Actually, I never heard of a lot of things. And coming to this academy had opened my eyes a little bit.  I sure wish it hadn't in this way though.

I took steps back and slowly cat walked my way out of danger. 

"Hey, You." The voice came from above. 

'Busted.'

And a second later the woman jumped and made a solid thud when she landed. She'd shattered some of the pavement. "YOU," she repeated. 

Was something wrong with this woman? 

"Yes?"

"Have you seen a man named Marcov? You know, looks weird and has an unshaved beard. He also has a girl with him." She was fairly calm till the mention of the girl came up. But wait, she was actually a lot saner than I thought she'd be.

I didn't know where she got the idea that someone like that could be found here but she was right on the money. But I sure wasn't going to sell out on someone I knew to someone who came off a mutor of all things.

"Before that, what is that thing?"

"Thing? Have respect kid. That's my pet. Our pet." I might have had offended her a little bit.

"Pet!? Since when did people start having mutors as pets!?"

"What are you talking about? Keeping domesticated mutors as pets have been going around for over sixty years now. What backwater place did you come from?" It was as though she was spitting out common knowledge. Unfortunately, they weren't so common to me.

I didn't know why but the way she said it, kind of hurt. 

"I live in Eng-"

"Oh yeah, the goody-goody country. Yeah, you're pretty much guaranteed to be riffed off of all your knowledge if you stay there. The government even controls the usage of cond- oops, you're too young for that." She cleared her throat.

Though I was just an immigrant, England was still my country. It felt awful when she insulted it. And yet, I knew she wasn't too far off the mark. The textbooks I read back there and the classes I attended always did have some form of this: it always felt like something was missing. No wonder I kept on finding new things about everything here at the academy. 

"What is your relationship with this Marcov guy?" 

I didn't know Marcov. He claimed to be my grandfather's friend and according to mom, she'd met him a few times when she was with gramps. That was all the more reason I couldn't sell him out. 

"What do you mean, I'm his wife." The woman stared at me with confusion. There was less light than usual so it took me a while to actually see her face. But now that I saw it, she did look middle-aged but she was still pretty slender and definitely didn't look older than forty. 

'Mom did mention the guy running on his wife.'

It did make sense in a way.

I sighed. 'I think I might need to re-study a lot of things.'

"I'm not sure where your husband is at the moment but you can come to the dorms with me. He might be in my room."

"Look kid, you're good-looking and all that, but I have a husband. He's a womanizer and a pathetic moron but I still can't cheat on him. I don't want to." She was being awfully humble.

"What are you talking about? I meant he was in my room before, meaning he could have come back for all I know. "

"Huh? Oh!" It was like she just made a realization. She stared at me for a second and then turned back all embarrassed. 

'Oh.' And then the realization hit me too.

***

I knocked on my door. It was about nine. Bringing a woman to the dorms at this hour, took a lot of convincing. The manager just wouldn't let her in, to the den of hyenas, in her own words. But when she and the woman had a private chat ear to ear, strangely, the manager was very understanding. 

The door wasn't opening though. 

'Is he sleeping or?'

I knocked again.

There was no response. If Merin was doing something, then he would have at least responded. But there was nothing.

"It could be that he's out but-" But when I checked the door, it was locked from the inside. Something was wrong here. "OH and that thing- I mean your pet won't create any problems, right?"

"Oh, Elina's a good girl." She carelessly touched the door handle and it just opened up. "Let's go in."

'That's a useful power. And wait, that thing is a she and has a name!?'

We went into the room. The lights were turned off and something felt off. The switch of the lights was to my left. So I signaled the woman to stand by at the door. Surprisingly she understood my silent language. 

I tiptoed to the switchboard. There was a lot of old technology throughout the world. Though better and more robust technology was available, not many used them. There were various reasons for that, the main one being not enough money. But this academy was pretty wealthy, so why they were still using these old-style switches that I didn't understand. 

It took me a second to switch on the lights but it didn't take me a second to realize Merin was tied and gagged on the bed. The window was open and the culprit was gone. 

I sighed and glared at the poor guy looking up at me from the bed. 

I ungagged him and started to untie the knots. "What happened?"

He groaned. "He saw something in the sky and-" Merin became a little quiet. "And then he did this."

"Did he say anything?" The woman asked. 

"No, nothing. Wait, who are you?"

"NO time. The woman went closer to the window. "You coming?" She looked at me with a lot of expectations.

"You have no more need for me." If he wasn't here then I had no idea where he was.

"I need someone to show me around. I'm terrible with directions. That's why I was up in the sky." And also almost gave me a heart attack.

"I suppose but, I don't really have permission to be out past ten. And it's already nine-fifteen." Besides, I didn't want to be out either.

"Hmmm, too bad. And I was even going to reward you," the girl mumbled.

'Reward? Monetary reward!!'

Needless to say, my head was going funny the moment, the mention of a reward came. 

It all got ruined by her next words though. "In the form of a kiss." She winked. 

She wasn't as young as she thought she was. 

"Yeah, I'll pass." I was getting excited over nothing. 

She smiled faintly. "You know, some say my kisses are worth a hundred years of good luck."

"I'm pretty sure it hasn't been a hundred years since you were born." And if that was true her husband wouldn't have been running away from her like this.

She burst out laughing. "What are you, a geezer of some sort? Anyway, I need your help."

"What is going on?" Merin's ties were all undone and he was still confused. 

'I've been wondering that for over an hour now.'

"But I don't have any reasons to help you." And more importantly, I didn't want to.

"You need a reason to help a lady in distress? Did your mother teach you nothing? Did you have no sisters? What about your grandmother and-" She went on. I could see why that Marcov guy always ran on his wife. 

I sighed: this day was also full of sighs. "Yeah, I get it. I'll go, now shut up."

She giggled again. And stretched her hands towards me. I was still far off though. 

"Oh yeah, what happened to those two? Mom and Elsa I mean?"

"They went out right after you did." Merin stood up and did some stretching.

'Those guys… couldn't they have at least said goodbye?'

Sighing wasn't going to help so I went towards the woman. 

"You're pretty quirky you know. Are you sure you're not sixty?" The woman gave me a seductive smile. 

"Yeah, I am that old but I'm pretty sure you need a 'teen' instead of a 'y' though." 

She started laughing again and grabbed my hand, pulling me straight to her. "Grab on tight." She jumped. 

In that once second, I saw Merin's face brighten up. Was this guy some sort of sadist?

But really, jumping off from four stories? What was wrong with this woman?

A few seconds later we fell to the solid pavement beneath. Strangely, I wasn't hurt in any way, maybe just a little sore and a little dizzy. Did this lady have super strength or something? 

'What if she didn't unlock the door, rather…?'

If I was right, she had actually broken the lock itself, meaning I was in for a lot of lecturing by the manager.

"Where to now?" the woman wondered, smiling like a teenage girl. 

Now that I thought about it, she did seem to act a lot younger than her looks suggested.

"How the hell would I know?"