Read The Academy for Free Online

Californian in the room, a man Michael had never worked with when he was out there.
    “Oh, don’t be so harsh, Daniel, everything he says is true,” Ken said waving a hand at him. “So what do you think happens to us, Mike, hm? What will happen to the freelance people, the spotters who train, the trainers who spot? What will happen to those who might not get this, this accreditation, eh?”
    “Well—we can’t know that until it’s tried,” Michael said, knowing how awful it sounded. “Besides, it’s not even clear what the qualifications of accreditation will be, you don’t know who might be accepted and who not. And I know there’s nothing in the works to deny people access to the Marketplace—”
    “Yet!” snapped Shoshana. “Nothing yet! First they want to register us, make sure we are all in agreement, and then those who are not will be cast out.”
    Michael instantly put his head down and his hands behind his back. It was a posture meant to receive a rebuke, and it calmed the entire room as though they were all alpha dogs and he had turned his throat to them. Ken laughed, delighted.
    “Oh, poor thing, poor thing,” she crooned. “Come here and sit by me, and learn something, mmm?”
    “Ma’am—” Michael began to speak, but she shushed him.
    “No, no, we shall not frighten you any longer. I only want you to leave here knowing what we do for the Marketplace. Actually...” she paused meaningfully and looked into his eyes, “actually, I think you understand quite well what a spotter should and should not be, is that not true?”
    Michael wished he could just hang himself there and then. But instead he sat gingerly where she pointed, even more subdued than before. She knows! he thought with a moment of anguish. Of course, Geoff must have told her, they were on the same side now.
    Daniel pointed a finger at Michael and said, “People always say that spotters are the gateway to the Marketplace, and leave it at that. Well, sometimes I don’t think that anyone really understands how must time and effort—and money!—goes into being a successful spotter. Come on, folks, who here spotted ten clients last year?”
    Ken waggled a finger, but the rest of them scowled. Daniel waved at Ken with one hand and said, “Well, we have to expect that from you, Ken, you have no other life! Besides, you pick ’em and send them off for training faster than anyone I ever heard of. I doubt you remember the names of the people you spotted last year!” That was met with friendly laughter and Ken grinned with satisfaction.
    “But look at me—five damn clients last year, and I was grateful for every damn one. And you know how many people I spotted and let go?” He looked around the table.
    Shoshana shrugged. “One hundred? Two? It is the same all over.”
    “I built the playroom, I go to all the soft events, every damn one of them. Plus, I do the swinger circuit, and the post military rounds. Know what that means? I’m on the road three weeks out of four sometimes. And when I find a good one and get ’em into training, there’s no guarantee I can see ’em to the selling floor, because we’re getting a higher return rate now than ever!” He was obviously worked up about this, prepared to say all these things, and in the saying, some of his anger seemed to deflate. He sank back into his seat. “What I don’t need from the Academy, thank you very much, is more rules to learn, so I have to make it even harder for a new client to get into shape. And the last fucking thing I need is someone else telling me what trainers I can use if I don’t have the time or talent to train.”
    “Trainers tend to think they have the hardest job,” Shoshana said. “They are always whining about how much time they spend getting a client ready for market. But what about the time we spend making sure they are market material? What about the number of times we throw back bad merchandise, the ill-bred, the ill-motivated, the...