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“It’s not the academy that I’d want to take you out for,” you said, “It’s this place’s motor pool. It’s got everything y’could ever want. Trucks. Tanks. Recovery Wreckers.” A classic lesson for cadets was apparently tipping into a particular shallow crevice at the side of a particular bend that was hard to see. <span class="mu-i">Rolling Ridge</span> was never filled in due to being both educational and not dangerous enough to be anything more than comedy and extra experience for maintenance trainees. “But also,” you led him towards the stable where the steeds you had in mind were, “Motorbikes.”
“Motorbikes?” Magnus asked, “I thought the courier cars were the norm.”
“They are. ‘Cause the academy has fancy bikes that they don’t like disappearin’.”
The particular bike in possession of the school was the VAM-6C (Von Apfsen Motorrad), the Archduchy’s latest courier motorcycle. It was fast, tough, and not cheap at all, but damn if it wasn’t a lot of power in a smooth ride. Smooth compared to Sosaldt bikes at least, which wasn’t saying much. They were prized by the Academy- which is why most students couldn’t take them out without explicit permission from the Academy Director. However, the Silver Shield of Roland was special permission for even a foreign-born retinue like yourself.
They were also prized by the local ruffian youths, which some cadets were (not very secretly) members of a particular gang called <span class="mu-i">Die Armel</span>, the Sleeves. If they couldn’t be stolen from the garages, a daring gang would readily try and take one on the streets, when and where constables weren’t on the prowl. The bulky figure of the bikes was their preference to thinner framed, smaller engine rides.
It hadn’t actually been the biker gangs that had finally stopped motorcycles from being available to students, though. It had been some young lady with as much fondness for motorcycles as you, but without a shred of inhibition for certain theoretical temptations. Nobody knew more than rumors, but apparently this cadet had decided to have a late-night affair with one of the machines, and which one it was had remained unsaid. The straw that broke the donkey’s back.
Honestly, you weren’t sure if you could blame her. The VAM-6C was, as per its number-based nickname, a sexy machine in the buff kinda way, but it wasn’t a quiet one either, and the walls of the garage weren’t nearly as thick as the ones of the dormitory.
You told Magnus all of this as you walked to the bike garage, and he seemed oddly squeamish at the conclusion of the second story. “That seems…unsanitary.”
“Yeah. So?” You asked, brushing your hand down his chest, “I never complain ‘bout you getting sweaty an’ greasy. There’s good kinds of dirty.”
