by K A Riley
“He could give us a strategic advantage,” Kella offers. “You know, like our own flying guard dog.”
“Right,” Karmine says. “Plus, he’s got the perfect camouflage for night operations. And how marvie would that be? Having our very own battle-bird as part of our troupe?”
Even Manthy is standing in the back, quietly nodding.
Slinging his rifle across his shoulder, Brohn steps over to Granden. “So, what do you say? We’ll re-do the battle sim if you want. No problem. Just maybe let Kress keep her bird. It won’t hurt anything. She’ll keep him under control. She’s really good with him.” With that, he throws me a look that tells me he’s looking out for me, despite the fact that we were all-but-mortal enemies a few minutes ago.
Granden looks from one of us to the next. He’s clearly out of his element on this one. In the many years of the war against the Order, I’m pretty sure this is the first time a Trainer’s been surrounded by a bunch of yipping, heavily-armed Seventeens begging to adopt a telepathic bird.
“I’ll need to check with Hiller,” he says at last. He takes a few steps off and mutters into his comm-link. Trench tells us to wait where we are, while he walks over to the fence and calls up to check on Chucker.
“Hold off,” he tells Chucker. “We’ve got a situation here. Granden’s on link with Hiller to figure it out.”
Chucker frowns, clearly disappointed that he didn’t get to take Render down. He was probably looking forward to shooting the rest of us for dessert.
Standing next to me, Cardyn is all smiles. He puts his arm around my shoulders and presses his cheek to mine. “You got your old buddy back! This is definitely a sign. You’re going into Special Ops for sure! And once they find out about how you can—”
I cut him off with a vicious glare. “Not now, Card,” I warn as I wriggle out from under his arm. “Don’t say anything.”
“Okay fine. Have it your way.”
“That was a close call,” Brohn says, stepping toward me. He puts a hand on my upper arm and gives it a gentle, slightly hesitant squeeze. “Nice to see you in action, Kress. If you go after the Eastern Order like you took down Trench, they don’t stand a chance! Plus,” he adds with a nod toward the woods on the other side of the high fence and the Cubes, “it’s nice to see another friendly face around.”
“Thanks,” I reply with a smile and a reddening of my dirty cheeks.
“Yeah,” Karmine grins. “Even if that ‘friend’ is some kind of giant devil-bird from Hell.”
“Hey!” I object with a laugh. “Don’t say mean things about Render, or I’ll sic him on you, too.”
Karmine takes a step back with his hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay. I wouldn’t want to end up with a shredded face like poor Chucker up there.”
Granden walks back over to us after about thirty seconds. “Good news and bad news,” he says. “Hiller says Kress will get docked points for assaulting a Trainer and for disrupting the training sim. That puts her behind the rest of you when it comes to deployment.”
“What’s that mean?” Terk asks.
“It means her chances of making Special Ops just got a kick in the teeth.”
Kella slides her fingers through her long blond hair and then ties it back in a tidy ponytail with the leather band she keeps on her wrist. It’s a gesture I’ve seen a million times. It means she’s about to go into attack mode.
“You can’t punish her for something she doesn’t have any control over,” she says from behind a deep frown. “And it’s not fair to single her out. She was protecting a friend—an ally—which is exactly what we’re being trained to do.”
It’s not like Kella to leap to my defense, or to anyone’s defense for that matter, so I offer her a grateful smile of thanks.
Granden shrugs and points to the glimmering chrome-colored Halo hovering high above our heads. “It’s not my call. Hiller has an entire assessment team up there. They’re careful about deployments, and they don’t have a sense of humor about anything that causes one of you Seventeens to stray from training protocol.”
Kella looks ready to engage in a counter-attack, but she’s stopped by Rain, who literally has to grab her by the arm to hold her back.
“You said there was good news?” Rain asks.
“Yes,” Granden says with a pleasant smile and a nod in my direction. “She can keep the bird. The guards have been ordered to leave him alone for the rest of your time here.” He gives me a friendly point with his index finger. “After that, no promises.”
The sigh of relief I breathe is the first real exhale I think I’ve taken in hours. Cardyn high-fives me, and Terk, beaming ear to ear, shakes me by my shoulders and tells me how happy he is for me.
“Looks like your friend’s here to stay,” Kella says.
“Thanks to you,” I admit. “Thanks to all of you. Thanks for sticking up for me.”
“Don’t mention it,” Brohn says with a wry smile and a wink. “We were all just looking out for your best interest.”
“Not me,” Karmine says. “I was sticking up for the devil-bird.”
Brohn gives him a half-hearted punch to the shoulder, Kella rolls her eyes, and we all have a good laugh before heading back to the battle-sim site to collect our assorted weapons and get ready to drop back down into the Silo.
Later that night, after refreshing and well-deserved showers, we find ourselves sitting around in the Silo on our cots. It seems gloomy down here tonight. The glass tube that runs around the entire ceiling of our round room casts its usual flickering yellow-white light, but somehow our shadows seem darker. The good news is that our spirits are a lot brighter than usual.
“How do you think Render found us?” Terk asks. “I mean, we’ve got to be a thousand miles from the Valta.”
I shrug, feigning ignorance. “Maybe he followed the transport trucks?”
“Sure. I guess that’s possible.” Terk chuckles. “It doesn’t matter. All I know is it’s starting to feel like old times,” he says. “All of us together, I mean. Plus, you and your bird. Only we’re not worrying about surviving or getting taken away by the Recruiters.”
“Well, that’s because we’ve already been taken away by the Recruiters,” Rain sighs. “I’m with you, Terk. It’s nice to be all together. But this isn’t exactly the freedom we used to dream about, is it?”
Card gives Rain a sarcastic “Thanks for bringing us back to reality,” which she answers with a silent sneer. “And thank you, Kress,” he adds.
“For what?”
“For helping break up the boring training routine.”
“I’d hardly call getting shot at by these guys ‘boring,’” I tell him. I can still taste the terror of dodging gunfire and hiding behind that barrier, waiting to get caught and killed. It was an experience I don’t care to repeat, war or no war.
“You know what I mean. Training is fun, I guess. But it’s still routine, and we’re still kind of like prisoners here. It was just nice of your bird to remind us that there’s still a speck of freedom out there in the world.”
Card’s right. Amid all the excitement of shooting guns, throwing knives, target practice, and simulated combat conditions, there is something mind-numbingly dreary about knowing you’re not really free.
“And seriously?” Card adds. “‘Team One’ and ‘Team Two’? How boring is that?”
“Not just boring,” I say. “It’s about trying to divide us. They split us up so they could assess us better.”
Karmine scratches his head. “Isn’t that their job? The whole reason we’re here?”
“No,” Brohn says in a weirdly hostile tone. “We’re here because we were forced to be. Let’s not kid ourselves, guys. We had no choice but to come to this place. This isn’t about being trained or assessed for our own good. This is for them. We were kidnapped, as sure as if they’d snuck into the Valta in the middle of the night, bound us, gagged us, and tossed us into the back of that transport truck.”
“Which
they’ve done to Recruits in the past,” I remind him.
“Exactly. Their job is to weed us out. Our job is to stick together. It’s how we survived as long as we did in the Valta, and it’s how we’ll survive now. Whatever conflicts, problems, worries, or whatever else we had back home, none of it matters here. This may not exactly be the paradise we were hoping for after Recruitment Day, but it’s a fresh start, and we need to make the most of it. Keep climbing. Keep surviving. Keep together. It’s how we’ll win in the end.” With those words he throws me a knowing look.
“What if they keep splitting us up, like for war games and stuff?” Terk asks.
“Let them. They can divide us into as many teams as they want. But we’ll never let them split us up. We’re family. All of us. Render, too.”
Everyone nods. Even Amaranthine.
“Then it’s settled,” I say quietly. “We’re a Conspiracy.”
12
The next day, when we rise up in our Capsules, the Agora seems to have magically opened up. It’s uncluttered, calm, and green again. There’s not a trace of the chaos from yesterday’s battle, which I’m sure I failed.
Granden and Trench greet us and lead us into the shadow of the next giant black building. “Congratulations on your two weeks of weapons training!” Granden calls out. “You’ve now advanced to Beta Cube.”
With Trench at his side, he leads us over to the second of the eight large buildings. I’m still bleary-eyed and exhausted from the slaughter the day before, but thinking about Render, knowing he’s safe out there somewhere, gives me a boost of energy.
I scan the treetops for a sign of him, but I can’t see anything. I don’t dare try to connect with him directly, not with this many people around. Besides, after what happened yesterday, I’m not sure if I could handle another bout of sensory overload. My feeling of internal emptiness hasn’t come back, though, so I know he’s okay.
I find myself craving privacy. Just a few minutes to be truly alone, to breathe, to think. I still don’t want anyone to know just how powerful my connection to Render has grown. The other Seventeens still see him as my pet. To most of them, he’s nothing more than a familiar of some kind. Some sort of cute, loyal mascot. Brohn and Cardyn seem to understand that our bond goes deeper than that, but for now I don’t want them knowing the full extent of our link. It would only put the two most important people in my life in danger.
At the Beta Cube, a wide black door slides open to reveal Hiller. Wearing the same form-fitting top and billowing white lab coat she had on the last time we saw her, she throws Granden and Trench an undisguised look of condescension before turning to face us.
“As you know from your daily scores, we’ve been monitoring your progress. But now playtime’s over. Welcome to Beta Cube.”
I have no idea what she means. If what we’ve experienced up until now is playtime, she must be planning to outright torture us. I exchange a quick glance with Brohn, who looks concerned. His jaw’s tight, his body rigid, fists balled up.
By now I know that look. He’s preparing for the worst.
Hiller leads us up a flight of stairs, down a hallway, and into a conference room with four desk-like tables in each corner. On either side of every table sits a black office chair on round silver wheels.
“You’ve done some good work…but also some very poor work,” Hiller says, turning her gaze to me. “But before I get into the specifics, I think we need to get to the bottom of our little bird situation.”
“What’s to get to the bottom of? You said Kress could keep him,” Brohn interrupts defiantly, and I immediately want to hug him for it. I only wish I could.
“That’s true,” Hiller says. “But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t deserve a penalty for straying from training protocol, attacking a Trainer. Or for losing the battle-sim, for that matter.”
“I didn’t lose,” I protest. “They never actually tagged me.”
Hiller ignores me at first as she shifts her eyes from Terk to Cardyn to Amaranthine. She seems to be sizing up my team, looking for weaknesses. “No, I suppose they didn’t,” she says at last. “But that’s a technicality. The fact is, you left the arena. Team One shot each of your teammates. That makes you a deserter. And the bad news?”
Oh, great, I think. There’s bad news?
“Team One’s failure to finish the job—no matter what the distraction was—makes them subject to punishment as well.”
“What? How is that fair?” Rain asks. Her voice is high-pitched, bordering on a yell. The heels of her fists are pressed firmly into the top of her desk. “Shouldn’t we get credit for sparing our friend?”
“Absolutely not!” Hiller thunders, a look of rage flashing across her face for a second before she regains control. She raises her hand and starts ticking off facts on her fingers. “As I see it, you sparing her means three things: she allowed herself to get so distracted by the bird that she became reckless. You got distracted by her. And you also forgot that, for purposes of this challenge, she was the enemy.” With a judgmental frown, she glances around at all of us. When Cardyn opens his mouth to talk, she immediately cuts him off. “I’m not asking if you think you deserve punishment. I’m telling you there is a penalty for your actions. There is too much at stake here to risk compromising your training. I know you’re having fun. You like being challenged, not to mention running around blasting each other with paint pellets. But never forget, there’s a real war out there with real people, many of them your age and younger, who are dying.”
Hiller’s words hang in the air for a second like a dense cloud. Before any of us can react, she taps the comm-link on her wrist, and we hear the sound of heavy footsteps in the hallway. The door swings open, and Chucker and Kellerson stride ominously into the room. I’ve seen them as Recruiters in the back of the transport truck and as guards up in their turrets. But seeing them like this, flanking Hiller like stone sculptures, is a different, scarier sensation. Their height, thickness, and solidity seem to fill the room entirely. As tough as I tell myself we Seventeens are, part of me feels like these two men could break most of us down just by virtue of their presence.
“Stand up,” Hiller orders. The eight of us rise to our feet as she commands. “Now you will each be taken to separate rooms, where your punishments will be handed out.”
Tentatively, we look around at each other. For a moment I make contact with Cardyn, whose bugged-out eyes make him look like he might drop dead from a panic attack. I’m pretty sure I’ve got the same look on my own face. For that matter, we’ve probably got the same questions spinning through our minds. Are we getting docked points on our grades? Or are they taking us somewhere to kill us?
Right now, the latter seems like a pretty realistic end result.
As if we’ve turned into a herd of hypnotized zombies, we line up and follow Chucker and Kellerson, who take us through a series of long, twisting halls. We walk up two flights of stairs, down a corridor, around a few turns, back down two flights, and then up another set of stairs. I’m thinking, there better be a nice big block of cheese at the end of this maze, but there’s no way I’m saying that out loud. While I don’t always share Terk’s paranoia that we might be killed at any time, I have no interest in testing the two men who’ve already made it abundantly clear that my sense of humor stops where the barrels of their guns begin.
Our dour group navigates several more disorienting twists and turns until we enter a final wide hallway. Chucker and Kellerson deposit each Seventeen into one of the eight rooms—four on either side—along the way. They close the doors behind each of us.
Surprise, surprise. I’m the last one.
“Get in!” Chucker growls as I stare at the open door and the desk beyond. When I make my way in, the door slides shut behind me. The metallic click of a lock tells me in no uncertain terms that I’m now a prisoner.
Stop it, Kress. This is just another test. It’s not like the powers that be have suddenly become totally evil.
&n
bsp; Cursing myself for my paranoia, I spin back to realize there’s no doorknob or handle.
Resigned, I seat myself in the chair in front of the small desk, where I remain until what feels like half an hour has passed. Eventually, I find myself getting fidgety, desperate to stand up and walk around. The room really is a cell, with no windows, no vents or overhead pipes. No features of any kind, really. The sliding door nestles so seamlessly into the wall that not even a groove or a gap indicates it was ever even there.
I tell myself I’m not going insane, that I really did walk in here like a perfectly normal person. But with every minute that passes, I become more convinced that I’ll go crazy, stuck in this pointless little room.
I’m on the verge of screaming when the door finally slides open and Hiller comes striding in. I wonder if she can see the fury in my eyes.
“You have two choices, Kress,” she says, dropping a writing stylus and a sensor projection pad onto the table. They hit with a hollow clatter that doesn’t faze her, but it makes me flinch. “You can confess that your distraction interfered with the battle-sim…or you can say nothing. Just so you know, your friend Cardyn has the same choices.”
I glance up at her with what I hope is a look of casual indifference, but I know it’s probably a lot closer to confusion bordering on terror.
“There are four possible results,” she continues. “First, if you confess to your distraction but Cardyn stays silent, you will not be penalized. He will be given a five-hundred-point penalty. Second, if you stay silent but Cardyn confesses, you’ll be penalized the five-hundred points. He’ll get no penalty but will be thanked for his honesty. Third, if you confess, and he also confesses, you’ll both be deducted three-hundred points. Fourth, if you both refuse to confess, we’ll have no choice but to deduct one hundred points from each of you.”
Reeling now, I’m trying to get my mind around my options.
“What about the others?” I ask.
I don’t want to say it out loud, but I can’t help wondering if Brohn is going to lose points too. I hate the thought of him losing his chance at Special Ops because of me.