The Academy Read Online Free PDF Page B

with her. “I am even allowed out to play from time to time,” he added daringly.
    “Oh, ho, you are? How terrible for you. Do you not find it easier to be controlled, knowing that your world is ever safer than the traffic you are playing in now?” She waved merrily to someone who had nodded her way and turned suddenly back into the hotel. The cool shade of the evening was so pleasant inside, warm wood everywhere, muted light in the corners. Michael scrambled to keep up because she seemed purposeful now.
    “I’m not a good porch dog,” he said.
    “That’s not what I heard,” she said, suddenly stopping and flashing a very nasty grin. “In any event, you shall certainly meet a rather fascinating doggie trainer later on, and we shall see what he makes of you.”
    What the hell am I supposed to say to that? Michael wondered. “Well—I’ll be honored to meet anyone you wish to introduce me to, Ms. Mandarin.”
    “Ha!” she laughed, smacking him smartly on the arm. “You’re a good boy. Come in and meet some of my friends—I make no promises that they will not bite!”
    He looked around, and saw the half-open sliding door that she was pointing to. Instantly, he slid it open wide enough for them to enter, and found himself in a small western-style meeting room, with a regular sized table and real chairs. Seated around the table were five individuals he had seen earlier with Ken. Her fellow spotters, most likely. Suddenly, he realized that this might not be the smartest place for him to be. If Chris was stirring up trouble with the spotters, and he was Chris’s...Chris’s...trainee. Student. Junior trainer. Boy? Whatever.
    “Heya, this is Mike here,” Ken said, sprawling across one of the chairs, one leg dangling over the arm. “Meet the real people who make the Marketplace work, Mikey.”
    Michael sighed and bowed as the people in the room introduced themselves. There was no awkwardness with these people, and no one extended a hand to shake his. Only one of them was known to him, a man named Paul Sheridan from New York City, a friend of Chris’s older brother, Ron. Paul had literally decades of experience in the field, and this was the first time Michael had seen him out of some form of leather. In fact, Paul was wearing a rather loud Hawaiian shirt over a pair of cut-off jeans, certainly one of the most informal people there. But he had never met the darkly tanned woman who introduced herself as Shoshana, or the vaguely sinister Italian man who barely scanned him for an instant before nodding and shrugging as though the meeting was of no consequence at all. The last man was a slender, brown-skinned man who was engaged in the Academy schedule and barely nodded to him when he was introduced. It was one of those moments when Michael realized he had been examined and quickly regarded as a person of little consequence. As always, it hurt.
    Michael felt an increasing need to leave, but couldn’t figure out how to elegantly get out of the situation without insulting Ken Mandarin or showing how scared he was.
    “Do you know why we are here?” Ken asked him, as he bowed to his final introduction. She looked pointedly at him, and he felt that sinking sensation that meant he was about to Learn a Lesson.
    For a second, he thought of answering her with a quip, but decided against it. “I know the purpose of the Academy is to encourage communication and learning among the trainers,” he said carefully. “You meet every year, but not everyone attends. I know that for years, it has been the custom of the Academy to bestow an honorary accreditation to senior trainers who are sponsored by previous members, and that this was always a voluntary process, something like getting a certificate from a civic organization. And I know that this year, there’s a proposal to make accreditation into a formal status instead of an optional one, and you have to vote on that.”
    There was a derisive snort from the only other