by J B Cantwell
Well, it was almost the truth.
“I’ve been telling Prime Williams here about a top secret mission we need someone with talent on. We spoke about it this morning, though at the time, Prime Williams was not keen on you being part of this particular team.” He sat back against a desk that was situated at the head of the classroom. “What do you think about that?”
My eyes widened despite my efforts to control my reaction. Not keen?
“I don’t know, Sir. I guess I’m a little surprised.” I looked toward Alex again, frowning. What was he doing?
“I was also surprised,” Tanning said, looking back and forth between us.
“She’s not ready, Sir,” Alex said. “None of us are.”
“I think it will be up to me to decide who is ready for what tasks,” Tanning bristled.
“But, Sir—”
“That’s enough, Williams.” His temper flared, and I didn’t dare look at Alex again.
“Sir, I am ready for any mission you deem me fit for.”
I was excited by what Tanning was telling me, though confused by Alex’s behavior. A special mission meant special information. Maybe I could learn something crucial to the cause of the Volunteers.
But then, it wasn’t Alex’s goal to advance my inside knowledge of the Service. I still wasn’t sure what his goal was.
“Good,” Tanning said. “You will have two weeks to train. First, you need to learn how to set a grenade type of device underwater. Then—”
“I’m sorry, Sir,” I said. “Underwater?”
“Yes, soldier.”
My stomach sank.
“Sir, I don’t know how to swim.”
He waved his hand away dismissively.
“That, you’ll learn. What is more important is for you to train in setting and detonating a bomb. Prime Williams, Hector Ortiz, and Kyle Stanley will be under your command, Taylor. You will need to learn the basics, though Ortiz and Stanley already have a fair bit of knowledge on the subject. They will be the ones who actually detonate the bombs.”
I glanced at Alex. Now I understood. Whatever his reasons were for following me around, whatever mission the Service had set him before coming to this place, this wasn’t part of it.
All at once I realized the truth. Alex, as brainwashed as he might be, as altered as the Service had made him, still didn’t want me dead, had never wanted me dead. I felt certain that if it were me at wrong end of a firing squad, there was no way on Earth that he would pull the trigger.
Is that what the problem was now? Did he really think I would die if I were to accept this mission?
I tore my gaze away from him and faced Tanning, saying the only words that I would ever be permitted to say in this situation.
“Sounds good, Sir. When do we start?”
“You’re crazy,” Alex said as he followed me toward the staircase down into the lower levels of the silo.
“Come on,” I said. “It’s not like I really have a choice. What do you think he would have done if I’d said no?”
“But you can’t swim. And neither can I.”
“Yeah, that’s a problem,” I agreed. But the thing that was really getting at me wasn’t Alex’s words. I wanted to know why I had been the one chosen to lead and not him.
“We need to get you out of this.”
“Out of it? And how do you expect to be able to do something like that? I mean, maybe if I got hurt in training or something, but I’d rather not end up like Kyle if it’s all the same to you. What’s on my mind, though, is why they picked me over you.”
“Why they picked you? Well, that’s obvious.”
“It is? Why then?”
“Well, it could be a couple of reasons. One, you did better in Edmonton than I did. You led a whole team there. All I did was follow you around.”
“Yeah, and what’s the other reason?” I opened the door to the staircase and let it slam shut behind us.
“They want you dead.”
I laughed at this. “Oh, come on.”
“What? It’s true. Or it could be true.”
“I don’t buy it. If they wanted me dead, all they would have to do is take out a gun and shoot me on the spot. It’s not like anyone would get in trouble for killing me. That’s not how things work.”
“Seriously? You don’t think that assigning you an underwater mission could be an effort to do away with you?”
I shrugged. “Nope.”
He sighed, irritated.
“Anyway,” I went on. “There’s nothing we can do about it. Though we do have a lot of catching up to do.”
I was keenly aware that everyone downstairs was learning how to disarm a bomb right now. How was I supposed to lead a team if I didn’t even know the basics? I quickened my pace, and soon we were in the nuke room. I paused, looking up at the giant warhead.
“It’s crazy, isn’t it?” I said, my eyes scanning the missile all the way to the sharp, pointed tip.
“This bomb isn’t the thing that’s crazy here.”
I looked over at him and found he was staring at me.
“Whatever,” I said. “I don’t have a choice, and you know it.” I turned and walked away toward the second staircase.
He caught me by the arm and turned me around.
“You do, though. Maybe we can get out of here. Just you and me.”
“What?”
“I’ve been thinking about it,” he whispered. “I bet we could do it. We could—”
“They’ll kill us, Alex,” I whispered back, my eyes darting around as I tried to decide if we were being actively monitored.
“No, not if they can’t catch us,” he said. “We can both run now.”
“Faster than a car? Or a helicopter? You honestly think they would let you go after putting so much time and effort and money into building you up?”
And me. They weren’t about to let me escape. Not without finding out the goal of the Volunteers first. For whatever reason, they had decided not to torture me for the information. Instead, the Service was waiting to see what I’d do next. And my best bet was to do exactly as I was told.
I turned again and walked away.
“Just listen,” he said.
“No. It won’t do either of us any good to pretend that escape is a viable possibility.”
Besides, I had thought about that already, long and hard.
“The only way out of here is to make it through our term. Then, we’ll be free. We just have to get through to the other side.”
But I knew as I said these words that the chances I would make it through free and clear were nearly zero. I was on a suicide mission no matter what choices I made. And while I had hope that I might be able to pull off the crazy ideas that the Volunteers had put in my head, I knew I probably wouldn’t get out of that situation alive, whether I succeeded or not.
So, water? Swimming? Explosives? Sure. Why not? Maybe I would learn something valuable.
And, I secretly thought, maybe I could find someone to help me when the time came to fry the transmitter buildings. Someone who already knew what they were doing.
As we made the landing onto the 10th floor, I opened the heavy door and waited for Alex to come through. But he didn’t. He just stood there, stubbornly waiting for me to come around.
“Come on,” I said, taking his hand. It was sweet, what he was trying to do. He wanted to save us.
But what he didn’t realize is that we had been dead from the start, from the moment we had signed up for the Service. Winning the prize at the end of this game the military had set before us was like winning the lottery. And I knew what the chances of that were like.
He grudgingly followed me through the door, and we made our way down into the maze of hallways together.
Luckily, we hadn’t missed much. The nine other soldiers were all standing up beside Fraser as he went over the points of defusing the small pipe bomb that was resting on his desk.
I tried to pay attention, but it was
difficult now, more so than I had thought it would be. Maybe I didn’t need to know all of this stuff so well. Maybe all I had to do was lead a team who did know, and not just in the Service. Maybe it would be enough to ally with a soldier or two here. Then, when it seemed we were in the clear, we could all go and do the job together.
There had to be others like me, people who were in way over their heads, people who were starting to understand that the chances of making it out of the Service alive were almost nil.
“Taylor,” I heard a voice somewhere in the back of my head. “Soldier Taylor!” it said again, this time yelling. I snapped out of my daydream and found that everyone in the room was staring at me.
“Yes, Sir,” I said, embarrassed.
“Tell me the significance of the red wire in this situation.”
I stared blankly at the explosive device.
The red wire. The red wire. Red. Wire.
“I’m sorry, Sir. I don’t know.”
“Boom,” he said, widening his hands with the tone of his voice.
I was dead.
No, it wouldn’t be enough to count on others to do the dirty work of my job for me.
“There is no red wire,” he said, a smirk on his face. “You’re excused.”
“Excused, Sir?”
“Yes, Taylor. Get out of my sight.”
I stood staring for several long moments, not quite understanding.
Fraser beckoned for the other soldiers to step in closer, to watch what he was doing, and as they did what they were told, their bodies closed me out so that I couldn’t see the desk any longer.
I turned and made for the door.
“Oh, and Taylor,” he said as I was about to leave. “Don’t bother coming back.”
Chapter Eight
I had to catch up.
Back in the barracks, I lay awake, scanning the schematics for the small explosive my fellow soldiers were working with right that minute. Luckily, every time Fraser made a change to the device, an instruction would appear in my lens. In this way I could follow along in the lesson without being physically there.
I watched as the fuse part of the diagram I was looking at lit up. He was removing it now, the last in a series of steps.
In a way, I was glad I wasn’t down there. If that bomb was live, and if it exploded … well, BOOM, just like Fraser had said. Now that I thought about it, I was surprised they weren’t wearing any tactical gear. Though, I supposed, if the device did blow, they were all close enough to it that they would die no matter what they were wearing.
That was the risk of this “safe” assignment. I understood now that my life could be in danger even more than it might be when in battle. Maybe I hadn’t been brought here to become a specialist at all.
The clock on the wall read 1730. They would be coming back up soon. And what would I do? Go to dinner with them, I supposed. Maybe Alex would help me get up to speed. I may have been dismissed today, but that wouldn’t keep me from trying tomorrow. I wondered what would happen if I simply showed up for class. Would Fraser make me leave again?
Twenty minutes later, the other soldiers strode into the barracks. I sat up in my bed and waited for Alex to come my way. He stopped at the foot of the bed, his bulging arms crossed over his chest.
“You were pretty stupid down there,” he said.
Great.
“Yeah, I know. What did I miss?”
“The basics of the pipe bomb. How to defuse it, mostly, though he went over each piece of it pretty thoroughly.”
Thoroughly enough to build one?
“Yeah, I saw on my lens. I’m surprised no one was hurt, actually.”
Alex raised his eyebrows.
“He gave us all the schematic this morning, remember?”
Alex sat down on his bed across from me.
“Well, it wasn’t a live bomb. He’d put in sand where you’d put the gun powder. But listen, you have to do better. What will happen if he doesn’t let you back in?”
“I have a plan for that. Besides, we’re already assigned to our underwater death sentence.”
He looked around nervously. “Shut up,” he whispered. “Nobody else knows about that yet. And I’m pretty sure we’re supposed to keep it quiet.”
“Quiet? Why?”
“I don’t know. But when I was in with Tanning, before you came in, he was acting like the whole thing was some big secret.”
“Alright, then. But he’s going to have to tell Hector and Kyle soon enough. Not to mention the fact that everyone here is going to wonder where we went.”
“Well, let’s just leave that up to Tanning to deal with. I’m sure he’ll get us all together when it’s time to train.”
That’s right. Training. Swimming. My stomach sank.
And we were supposed to do this how, exactly?
Hector approached us then, a wide smile plastered on his face.
“We missed you this afternoon,” he said as he strolled up. “I guess you won’t be learning much about pipe bombs, eh?”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” I said.
He raised his eyebrows. “Really? Listen, kid, Fraser isn’t one to take things lightly. If he tells you to stay away, I’d listen to him.”
“And what am I supposed to do instead? I can’t exactly sit around here all the time while you are all downstairs training.”
“True.”
Alex leaned in. “We’ll talk to Tanning. He’ll know what to do.”
Hector laughed. “You think you’ll be able to have a private audience with Tanning? You’re both nuts.”
“That’s all you know,” I said, standing up to face him. “And I’d work on your attitude if I were you.” I pushed past him and walked toward the door, toward dinner. Hector’s laugh followed me.
“Whatever you say, sweetheart!” he bellowed for the whole room to hear. “Whatever you say!”
The next day I woke before anyone else. I stared at the ceiling for a while, but my efforts to get back to sleep were wasted. I got up and changed into my fatigues in the quiet, then went into the bathroom to brush my teeth and clean up.
I splashed some cool water on my face and stared at myself in the mirror.
Leader.
Tanning was crazy, that much was sure. I found it hard to believe that there wasn’t a single person in the entire facility that couldn’t take my place, and with a lot more experience than me. Even Alex would have been a way better choice.
I looked at the glowing green ring around my iris, my lens system. All of this effort to help the Volunteers for such a little thing, to destroy something so small, and yet so huge.
There had to be a reason that Tanning wanted me to lead the team, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. If they wanted me dead, why didn’t they just take me outside and shoot me?
No. Somewhere along the line, someone on the Service’s side had decided they would have to take me out in a way that wasn’t so obvious as a bullet to the brain. Stationing me here, they could blow me up. And, apparently, drown me if that suited their fancy better. The whole thing would look like an accident. That way no one would pay any price for my death. No one would be held accountable.
They were scared, my superiors, my enemies, scared for their own lives, too. They were taking an enormous risk by putting me in danger for nothing more than their irritation that I’d been assigned to their command.
There was somebody upstairs, someone I didn’t know, who was pulling the strings in favor of the Volunteers. Whoever that person was, they had made sure that I would be assigned here, the perfect place to learn all about how to assemble explosives, to plan for taking the transponder buildings down.
But they were wrong. They hadn’t seemed to realize that they were sending me on a death mission. Their understanding of the program here had been false. And they were making it look like the orders were coming from so far up the chain in command that no one even thought to question them.
But somebody was quest
ioning them. Somebody was angry that I’d been sent here. And that person wanted me dead.
I doubted that someone far up the chain of command had decided to send me to the explosives unit. I wondered if the real culprit was one of the Volunteers’ hackers. Had they realized that they were assigning me to one of the most dangerous jobs in the world? Before coming to the silo, I’d thought we would be building the things, that I would get the experience without having to put myself at risk on the battlefield.
But that wasn’t the case now. Now, the only information I would have to offer to the Volunteers would be the schematics, not the actual experience of building the explosives.
All in all, though, the whole situation was a wash. All I had to do was to make it through, to dodge the theoretical landmines that were set before me, to learn the information I needed to know and then get out before someone had a chance to do me in for good.
Not impossible.
Almost, though.
I grabbed a towel from a pile close by and dried my face. That’s when I noticed Kyle’s distorted reflection in the mirror beside me. I started and flipped around.
“Geez, you scared me.”
“Oh, sorry. Sometimes all of this,” he motioned to the burn scars on his face, “can really freak people out.”
“No, no. It’s not that. You just surprised me is all.”
He stood there quietly, just looking back at me.
“Are you okay?” I asked, frowning.
He looked down at his socked feet for a moment, then back up at me.
“Are any of us?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean.” His hand absently touched his cheek, and he came closer to inspect himself in the mirror.
I guessed the bombs we were set to train with weren’t all dummies. Clearly some of them used real explosive material.
“What happened to you?” I asked, my voice low.
“It was a grenade. It went off too soon, and I didn’t get far enough away.” He turned and pulled up his shirt, revealing scars that stretched across his back, too.
“I can’t believe they made you stay here after that.”