Agent Matt: Academy of Shadows
Chapter 11: Sorrow by name
The Ombre Académie was built by a lunatic. For a time it had been used as an asylum. Matt remembered what Korindo Ooishi had told him as the helicopter began its final descent, the red and white helipad looming up to receive it. The photograph in the brochure had been artfully taken. Now that he could see the building for himself, he could only describe it as ... crazy. It was a jumble of towers and battlements, green sloping roofs and windows of every shape and size. Nothing fitted together properly. The overall design should have been simple enough: a circular central area with two wings. But one wing was longer than the other. The two sides didn't match. The academy was four floors high, but the windows were spaced in such a way that it was hard to tell where one floor ended and the next began. There was an internal courtyard that wasn't quite square, with a fountain that had frozen solid. Even the helipad, jutting out of the roof, was ugly and awkward, as if someone had thrown a giant Frisbee that had smashed into the brickwork and lodged in place. Mrs. Stenavich flicked off the controls.
"I will take you down to meet the director," she shouted over the noise of the blades. "Your luggage will be brought down later." It was cold on the roof. Although it was almost the end of April, the snow covering the mountain still hadn't melted and everything was white for as far as the eye could see. The academy was built into the side of a steep slope. A little farther down, Matt saw a big iron tongue that started at ground level but then curved outward as the mountainside dropped away. It was a ski jump-the sort of thing he had seen at the winter Olympics. The end of the curve was at least fifty feet above the ground, and far below, Matt could make out a flat area, shaped like a horseshoe, where the jumpers were meant to land. He was staring at it, imagining what it would be like to propel yourself into space with only two skis to break your fall, when the woman grabbed his arm. "We don't use it," she said. "It is forbidden. Come now! Let's get out of the cold." They went through a door in the side of one of the towers and down a narrow spiral staircase (each step a different distance apart) Mrs. Stenavich warned Matt "Mind the step." As Matt looked at them he replied.
"Which one?" The stair case took them all the way to the ground floor. Now they were in a long, narrow corridor with plenty of doors but no windows.
"Classrooms," Mrs. Stenavich explained. "You will see them later." Matt followed her through the strangely silent building. The central heating had been turned up high inside the academy, and the atmosphere was warm and heavy. They stopped at a pair of modern glass doors that opened into the courtyard Matt had seen from above. From the heat back into the cold again, Mrs. Stenavich led him through the doors and past the frozen fountain. A movement caught his eye, and Matt glanced up. This was something he hadn't noticed before. A sentry stood on one of the towers. He had a pair of binoculars around his neck and a submachine gun slung across one arm. Armed guards? In a school? Matt had been here only a few minutes and already he was unnerved. "Through here!" Mrs. Stenavich opened another door for him, and he found himself in the main reception hall of the academy. A log fire burned in a massive fireplace with two stone dragons guarding the flames. A grand staircase led upward. The hall was lit by a chandelier with at least a hundred bulbs. The walls were panelled with wood. The carpet was thick, dark red. A dozen pairs of eyes followed Matt as he followed Mrs. Stenavich down the next corridor. The hall was decorated with animal heads: a rhino, an antelope, a water buffalo, and, saddest of all, a lion. Matt wondered who had shot them. They came to a single door that suggested they had come to the end of their journey. So far, Matt hadn't encountered any boys, but glancing out of the window, he saw two more guards marching slowly past, both of them cradling automatic machine guns.
Mrs. Stenavich knocked on the door.
"Come in!" Even with just two words, Matt caught the South African accent. The door opened, and they went into a huge room that made no sense. Like the rest of the building, its shape was irregular, none of the walls running parallel. The ceiling was about fifty feet high with windows running the whole, way and giving an impressive view of the slopes. The room was modern with soft lighting coming from units concealed in the walls. The furniture was ugly, but not as ugly as the animal heads on the walls and the zebra skin on the wood floor. There were three chairs next to a small fireplace. One of them was gold and antique. A man was sitting in it. His head turned as Matt came in.
"Good afternoon, Matt," he said. "Please come and sit down." Matt sauntered into the room and took one of the chairs. Mrs. Stenavich sat in the other. "My name is Sorrow," the man continued. "Dr. Sorrow. I am very pleased to meet you and to have you here." Matt stared at the man who was the director of Ombre Académie, at the white-paper skin and the eyes burning behind the red eye glasses. It was like meeting a skeleton, and for a moment he was lost for words. Then he recovered.
"Nice place," he said.
"Do you think so?" There was no emotion whatsoever in Sorrow's voice. So far he had moved only his neck. "This building was designed in 1862 by a Frenchman who was certainly the world's worst architect. This was his only commission. When the first owners moved in, they had him shot."
"There are still quite a few people here with guns." Matt glanced out of the window as another pair of guards walked past.
"Ombre Académie is unique," Dr. Sorrow explained. "As you will soon discover, all the boys who have been sent here come from families of great wealth and importance. We have had the sons of emperors and industrialists. Boys like you. It follows that we could very easily become a target for terrorists. The guards are therefore here for your protection."
"That's very kind of you." Matt felt he was being too polite. It was time to show this man what sort of person he was meant to be. "But to be honest, I don't really want to be here myself. So if you'll just tell me how I get down into town, maybe I can get the next train to the airport and go home."
"There is no way down into town." Dr. Sorrow lifted a hand to stop Matt from interrupting. Matt glanced at his long skeletal fingers and at the eyes glinting red behind the glasses. The man moved as if every bone in his body had been broken and then put back together again. "The skiing season is over. It's too dangerous now. There is only the helicopter, and that will take you from here only when I say so." The hand lowered itself again. "You are here, Matt, because you have disappointed your parents. You were expelled from six schools. You have had difficulties with the police."
"That wasn't my bloody fault!" Matt protested.
"Don't interrupt the doctor!" Mrs. Stenavich said. Matt glanced at her balefully.
"Your appearance is displeasing," Dr. Sorrow went on. "Your language also. It is our job to turn you into a boy of whom your parents can be proud of."
"I'm happy as I am," Matt said.
"That is of no relevance." Dr. Sorrow fell silent. Matt shivered. There was something about this room, so big, so empty, so twisted out of shape. And this man who was both old and young at the same time but who somehow wasn't completely human.
"So what are you going to do with me?" Matt asked.
"There will be no lessons to begin with," Mrs. Stenavich said. "For the first couple of weeks we want you to assimilate."
"What does that mean?"
"To assimilate. To conform ... to adapt ... to become like." It was as if she were reading out of a dictionary. "There are six boys at the academy at the moment. You will meet them and you will spend time with them. There will be opportunities for sports and for being social. There is a good library here, and you will read. Soon you will learn our methods."
"I want to call my mom and dad," Matt said.
"The use of telephones is forbidden," Mrs. Stenavich explained. She tried to smile sympathetically, but with her face it wasn't quite possible. "We find it makes our students homesick," she went on. "Of course, you may write letters if you wish."
"I prefer e-mail," Matt said.
"For the same reason, e-mail is not permitted." Matt shrugged.
"Up yours!" he swore under his breath. Dr. Sorrow had seen him.
"You will be polite to the assistant director," he snapped. He hadn't raised his voice, but the words had an acid tone. "You should be aware, Matt, that Mrs. Stenavich has worked with me now for twenty-six years and that when I met her she had been voted Miss South Africa five years in a row." Matt glanced at the hostile face.
"A beauty contest? You're having a laugh."
"The weight-lifting championships." Dr. Sorrow glanced at the fireplace. "Show him," he said. Mrs Stenavich got up and went over to the fireplace. There was a poker lying in the grate. She took it with both hands. For a moment she seemed to concentrate. Matt gasped. The solid metal poker, almost two inches thick, was slowly bending. Now it was U-shaped. Mrs. Stenavich wasn't even sweating. She brought the two ends together and dropped it back into the grate. It clanged against the stone. "We enforce strict discipline here at the academy," Dr. Sorrow said. "Bedtime is at ten o'clock-not a minute past. We do not tolerate bad language. You will have no contact with the outside world without our permission. You will not attempt to leave. And you will do as you are told instantly, without hesitation. And finally..." He leaned toward Matt. "You are permitted only in certain parts of this building." He gestured with a hand, and for the first time Matt noticed a second door at the far end of the room. "My private quarters are through there. You will remain on the first and second floors only. That is where the bedrooms and classrooms are located. The third and fourth floors are out of bounds. The basement also. This again is for your safety."
"You're afraid I'll trip on the stairs?" Matt asked. Dr. Sorrow ignored him.
"You may leave," he said.
"Wait outside the office, Matt," Mrs. Stenavich said. "Someone will be along to get you." Matt stood up.
"We will make you into what your parents want," Dr. Sorrow said.
"Maybe they don't want me at all."
"We can arrange that too." Matt left.
"An unpleasant boy . . . a few days . . . faster than usual ... the Shadow Project ... closing down. . ." If the door hadn't been so thick, Matt would have been able to hear more. The moment he had left the room he had cupped his ear against the keyhole, hoping to pick up something that might be useful to JIN 7. Sure enough, Dr. Sorrow and Mrs. Stenavich were busily talking on the other side, but Matt heard little and understood less. A hand clamped down on his shoulder suddenly and he twisted around, annoyed with himself. A so-called spy caught listening at keyholes! But it wasn't one of the guards. Matt found himself looking up at a round-faced boy with long, dark hair, dark blue eyes, and pale skin. He was wearing a very old Star Trek T-shirt, torn jeans, and a baseball cap. Recently he had been in a fight, and it looked like he'd gotten the worst of it. There was a bruise around one of his eyes and a gash on his lip.
"They'll shoot you if they catch you listening at doors," the boy said. He looked at Matt with hostile eyes. Matt guessed that he was the sort of boy who wouldn't trust anyone easily. "I'm Jamie Spurtz," he said. "They told me to show you around."
"Matt Hiroku."
"So what did you do to get sent to this dump?" Jamie asked as they walked down the corridor.
"I got expelled from six schools."
"I got thrown out of a school in Munich." Jamie sighed. "I thought it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Until my dad sent me here."
"What does your dad do?" Matt asked.
"He's a banker. He plays the money markets. He loves money and he has lots of it." Jamie's voice was flat and unemotional.
"Alec Spurtz?" Matt remembered the name. He'd made the front page of every newspaper in The world a few years before. The hundred - million- dollar man. That was how much he had made in just twenty-four hours. At the same time, the pound had crashed and the British government had almost collapsed. But the Yen was strong that year.
"Yeah. Don't ask me to show you a photograph, because I don't have one. This way. . ." They had reached the main hall with the dragon fireplace. From here, Jamie showed him into the dining room, a long, high-ceilinged room with six tables and a window leading into the kitchen. After that, they visited two living rooms, a games room, and a library. The academy reminded Matt of a ski resort-and not just because of its setting. There was a sort of heaviness about the place, a sense of being cut off from the -real world. The air was warm and silent, and despite the size of the rooms, Matt couldn't help feeling claustrophobic. Sorrow had said that there were only six boys currently at the school. The building could have housed sixty. Empty space was was nobody in either of the living rooms-just a collection of armchairs, desks, and tables-but they found a couple of boys in the library. This was a long, narrow room with old-fashioned oak shelves lined with books in a variety of languages. A suit of medieval Swiss armour stood in an alcove at the far end.
"This is Jacco. And Aidan," Jamie said. "They're probably doing extra math or something, so we'd better not disturb them." The two boys looked up and nodded briefly. One of them was reading a textbook. The other had been writing. They were both much better dressed than Jamie and didn't look very friendly. "Creeps," Jamie said as soon as they had left the room.
"In what way?"
"When I was told about this place, they said all the kids had problems. I thought it was going to be wild. Do you have a cigarette?"
"I don't smoke."
"Great, another one... I get here and it's like a museum or a monastery or ... I don't know what. It looks like Dr. Sorrow's been busy. Everyone's quiet, hardworking, boring. God knows how he did it. Sucked their brains out with a straw or something. A couple of weeks ago I got into a fight with a couple of them, just for the hell of it." He pointed to his face. "They beat the crap out of me and then went back to their studies. Really creepy!" They went into the games room, which contained table tennis, darts, a wide-screen TV, and a snooker table. "Don't try playing snooker," Jamie said. "The room's on a slant and all the balls toll the wrong way." Then they went upstairs, where the boys had their study bedrooms. Each one contained a bed, an armchair, a television ("It shows only the programs Dr. Sorrow wants you to see," Jamie said,) a bureau, and a desk. A second door led into a small bathroom with a toilet and shower. None of the rooms was locked. "We're not allowed to lock them," Jamie explained. "We're all stuck here with nowhere to go, so nobody bothers to steal anything. I heard that Jacco Van Dijk -the boy in the library-used to steal anything he could get his hands on. He was arrested for shoplifting in Amsterdam."
"But not anymore?"
"He's another success story. He's flying home next week. His father owns diamond mines. Why bother shoplifting when you can afford to buy the whole shop?" Matt's study was at the end of the corridor, with views over the ski jump. His suitcases had already been carried up and were waiting for him on the bed. Everything felt very bare, but according to Jamie, the study-bedrooms were the only part of the school the boys were allowed to decorate themselves. They could choose their own bedspreads and cover the walls with their own posters. "They say it's important that you express yourself", Jamie said. "If you haven't brought anything with you, Miss Stinkawitch will take you into Grenoble."
"Stinkawitch?" Matt smiled
"Mrs. Stenavich. That's my name for her."
"What do the other boys call her?"
"They call her Mrs. Stenavich." Jamie sighed. "I'm telling you-this is a deeply weird place, Matt. I've been to a lot of schools because I've been thrown out of a lot of schools. But this one is the pits. I've been here for six weeks now and I've hardly had any lessons. They have music evenings and discussion evenings and they try to get me to read. But otherwise, I've been left on my own."
"They want you to assimilate," Matt said, remembering what Dr. Sorrow had said.
"That's their word for it. But this place ... they may call it a school, but it's more like being in prison. You've seen the guards."
"I thought they were here to protect us."
"If you think that, you're a bigger idiot than I thought. Think about it! There are about thirty of them. Thirty armed guards for seven kids? That's not protection. That's intimidation." Jamie paused by the door. He examined Matt for a second time. "It would be nice to think that someone has finally arrived who I can relate to," he said,
"Maybe you can," Matt said extending his hand towards him. Jamie brushed it aside.
"Yeah. But for how long?" Jamie left, closing the door behind him. Matt began to unpack. The bulletproof ski suit and infrared goggles were at the top of the first suitcase. It didn't look as if he would be needing them. It wasn't as if he even had any skis. Then came the Discman. He remembered the instructions Samantha had given him. "If you're in real trouble, just press stop three times." He was almost tempted to do it now. There was something unsettling about the academy. He could feel it even now, in his room. He was like a goldfish in a bowl. Looking up, he almost expected to see a pair of huge eyes looming over him, and he knew that they would be wearing red-tinted glasses. He weighed the Discman in his hand. He couldn't hit the panic had nothing to report back to JIN 7.
There was nothing to connect the school with the deaths of the two men in New York and the Black Sea. But if there was anything, he knew where he would find it. Why were two whole floors of the building out of bounds? It made no sense at all. Presumably the guards slept up there, but even though Dr. Sorrow seemed to employ a small army, that would still leave a lot of empty rooms. The third and fourth floors. If something was going on at the academy, it had to be going on up there. A bell sounded downstairs. Matt shut his suitcase, left his room, and walked down the corridor. He saw another couple of boys walking ahead of him, talking quietly together. Like the boys he had seen in the library, they were clean and well dressed with hair cut short and neatly groomed. Really creepy, Jamie had said. Even on first sight, Matt had to agree. He reached the main staircase. The two boys had gone down. Matt glanced in their direction, and then went up.
The staircase turned a corner and stopped. Ahead of him was a sheet of metal that rose up from the floor to the ceiling and all the way across, blocking off the view. The wall had been added recently, like the helipad. Someone had carefully and deliberately cut the building in two. There was a door set in the metal wall and beside it a keypad with nine buttons demanding a code. Matt reached for the door handle, his hand closing around it. He didn't expect the door to open-nor did he expect what happened next. The moment his fingers came into contact with the handle, an alarm went off, a shrieking siren that echoed throughout the building. A few seconds later, he heard footsteps on the stairs and turned to find two guards facing him, their guns half raised. Neither of them spoke. One of them ran past him and punched a code into the keypad. The alarm stopped. And then Mrs. Stenavich was there, hurrying forward on her short, muscular legs.
"Matt!" she exclaimed. Her eyes were filled with suspicion. "What are you doing here? The director told you that the upper floors are forbidden."
"Yeah ... well, I must've fell asleep when he told me." Matt looked straight at her. "I heard the bell go and I was on my way to the dining room."
"The dining room is downstairs."
"Right." Matt walked past the two guards, who stepped aside to let him pass. He felt Mrs. Stenavich watching him while he went. Metal doors, alarms, and guards with machine guns. What were they trying to hide? And then he remembered something else. The Shadow Project. Those were the words he had heard when he was listening at Dr. Sorrow's door. Shadow. An area where direct light from a light source cannot reach due to obstruction by an object. But what did it mean? What did light around an object have to do with anything that was happening here? Turning the question over his mind, Matt went down to meet the rest of the students. He would have to figure out the rest later.