“I don’t know.”
“Sebastian?”
“It’s hard to say what, uh—”
“You’re hopeless. Daries?”
“This is the last one.”
“Castor?”
“This one.”
“Fin?”
“I . . . I don’t know.”
“Still a Fence, I see. You’re a good actress, but somewhere along the line your role swallowed you. Too bad. Fingers?”
Fingers had this weird, menacing look on his face, like his fear had congealed into something fierce. “I’m in.”
Rhys was getting closer to me and I wanted to slink back under the hammocks, but I’d already spoken and everyone had seen me and I would’ve looked totally spineless if I disappeared now. I didn’t know what to do. I still had too many doubts about Caelus to seriously consider going over to the Fires, but it was happening just like he said it would.
“Aaron?”
And then there was Eve. If I signed my name to either side and made myself a target, what did that make her? She was so close to getting the cure—she could actually kill the Kamalgia in the mice—the problem was the drug caused brain hemorrhaging, killing them, too. She just needed a little longer to figure out how to reduce the toxicity.
My mind went from a whirl of staccato thoughts to stillness. Everything in the background was in the foreground, and through it Rhys was carved up, seething. Frantic. I knew then that even if he was right about Caelus and everything else, this wasn’t the way. He was too impatient and dismissive of everyone else’s ideas. Too carried away by anger. He was no judge of men—just an executioner.
I looked at Fin and Brandon and finally Rhys. Fuck this.
“I’m out.”
“What?” Sebastian cried. “Aaron, we need you. How can you just stand back and let this happen . . .”
Rhys’s neck bulged and I thought he would lay into me, but he must’ve figured he’d look desperate doing it and refrained. “Fine then. McLaughlin?”
“I’m in.”
I remembered what Caelus had said about getting attached to the first people you met, Fin’s hand, and everything else, and knew I was doing the right thing. But even still, I felt queasy. Stranded. Exhausted from all the weeks of stirring half-awake through the nights, slipping in and out of nightmares.
Sebastian appeared by my side, whispering, “Aaron, this isn’t you at all. I know there’s got to be something you’re not seeing, some miscommunication or something—”
“You keep saying that, Seb, but what does that even mean? I had—have—this best friend on Mars who said the same thing once, but how can you think you know someone better than they know themselves? You don’t. You just want them to be what you want them to be. I don’t know what gave you the idea that I was this great guy or whatever. I’m not.”
“But you want to do the right thing, right?”
I looked over at the door a few meters away. “Of course I want to do the right thing.”
“Well, that’s all that matters. The rest is just a mix-up. You’re just mixed up by everybody.”
“And you’re not?” I asked, saying it loud enough that a handful of Blues looked over. “Rhys has some admirable qualities, but . . .”
“But what?”
“I don’t know. He’s . . .”
“Not perfect,” Sebastian finished for me. “I don’t think that anyone would say he is, but it’s pretty safe to say that C3 would fold without him.”
“And would that be such a bad thing?” I asked.
“What do you mean, would that be such a bad thing?”
“I don’t know, man. It just seems a lot has been built up about all of this, but have we seen Caelus or anyone actually do anything, besides Taryn picking on you in the cafeteria?”
“Are you kidding me? They tried to kill you.”
“Someone tried to kill me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Sebastian, exasperated. Usually he’d strive so hard to be agreeable, becoming uncomfortable himself when he sensed the slightest discomfort in others, but Sebastian wasn’t hedging now. This was the most worked up I’d seen him. “What’s going on with you?”
I shrugged.
“That’s not good enough,” Sebastian said, narrowing his eyes. “Who are y—”
“I just don’t think this whole trial thing is going to work,” I said.
“It absolutely won’t if you don’t help him,” he shot back.
“Hey, we’re trying to have a meeting here. If you two want to play gossip, do it in the hall,” Rhys called out.
I looked at Sebastian. “I should leave.”
I had to go find something out for myself.
Chapter 39
Dry air crept into my mouth, stealing away the moisture, as if the windows had been cracked open and some version of space was wafting inside. I checked in with a birdlike woman at the medical desk who blinked every few seconds, bobbing her head as I rattled off feigned symptoms, marking things on a lightpad. After a sub-nurse had taken my weight and blood pressure and led me back to a cell, I waited thirty seconds, then peeled open the curtain. She was facing a lightpanel on the wall with her back turned toward me, and I slipped out the opposite way around the corner. I passed another sub-nurse leading a Blue, and then another nurse—Nurse Lynne, I think—but neither paid attention to me.
The location of the Psych Wing was blacked out on my U-dev, but I found it exactly where Fingers’ hacked diagram said it would be. Not wanting to give away that I was after psych specifically, I’d told him I wanted to see all of Level 7 to get specs for the battery that supposedly powered medical-critical systems in the event of a power failure. I’d said casually that I had to build a battery of my own for my chemical engineering class, and pulling prints from that would make it ‘a helluva lot easier.’
Fingers was a suspicious guy, but I’d realized that if you told him you were doing something that he’d do, he wasn’t suspicious at all. He cheated in class all the time, seeing everything with the Reds as kind of a game where every loophole was meant to be exploited, so if anything my cheating made me more trustworthy to him.
It did feel weird, though. I hadn’t lied or done anything like it before and the queasiness it induced almost made me pull out. But I had to talk to Zoellers. Caelus’ words wouldn’t leave my head: There’s a reason they’re keeping him from you.
After twisting around rows of curtained cells, I exited the main triage bay and found myself in a winding, white-walled wing more reminiscent of the rest of Corinth. A nurse’s station carved into the back wall was unattended, so taking one last look to either side, I approached the lightpanel and started flipping through screens.
There was a call schedule for the nurses. Patient records. Patient vitals. I scrolled through the occupants using a 3D diagram of the wing and found Student Ensign Zoellers after only about fifteen seconds. All his biostats—heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration—were green. Beside them were basic attributes: Blond hair, blue eyes. Blood type: B positive. Etc. I kept scrolling down until I found patient notes. Faster than average to adjust to new environments. Light sleeper. Seeks conflict. Anxious. Disagreeable. Low empathy. Embraces treatment, but uncertain if desires recovery. Has repeatedly requested higher doses of medication. Asked adjacent patients for their medication until isolated. Prone to mood swings. Disassociation. Probable Borderline Type 3. Physical notes: Broken nose. Facial trauma from the Tread Room and/or Mat Room. Medication cocktail: Topical cleromextrine alpha for anxiety-induced rashes. Erafortame gel caps (2 per day). Sensoberoxal tablet (1 per day). Counseling sessions (3 per day). Administrating nurse: Annabelle.
After locating myself on the diagram and where he was in relation, I grabbed a key card and was about to head out but heard jingling and ducked back in again. I waited until I saw the backs of two orderlies and a tread-mounted AI pushing a cart before stealing out the other way.
A few moments later I s
wiped the key card and was face-to-face with Maxamine Zoellers.
“You’re not Nurse Anne,” he said.
I could tell he intended it as a joke, but when I stepped forward into the light, his smirk receded. “Not nearly as hot.”
“I didn’t think there was a nurse here under the age of fifty.”
“There isn’t,” he said, and the smile reemerged. “But that just means it’s a seller’s market.”
I ignored this and took another step forward.
“Have you come to hurt me? Because that’s kind of what it looks like. Normally I’d be freaked out, but I’m on a lot of drugs right now, so I guess you could say you caught me at a good time.”
“Zeroes?”
“Tip of the iceberg, man. I don’t know if you saw it coming in, but down the hall there’s a supply locker that is fucking sta-a-aa-cked; shit you wouldn’t even think of. And those nurses, bless their hearts, have access to it.” He looked at my card. “But it looks like you already knew that.”
“I’m just borrowing it,” I said.
“Suuurre.”
“What happened to your nose?” I asked.
“Oh, this old thing.” He laughed. “Fell down the stairs. I’m always doing things like that so it’s probably on my file. Max Zoellers: accident-prone.”
“No really, how’d you break it?”
“I . . . fell . . . down . . . the . . . stairs.” He watched as I sat down on the bed next to him. “You going to rough me up or something?”
“No.”
He smirked again. “Then what’s your play?”
“My play?”
“Yeah, your play to get me to talk. Violence usually does the trick, but I’m kind of on a cloud, you see. I’m not sure I’d feel it if you broke my nose again or even water-boarded me.” He dug his fingernails deep into his arm, breaking the skin. “See? Nothing. It’s kind of like when you go to the dentist and bite your lips until they bleed, but this is Novocaine for the whole body. So . . . what’s your play?”
I looked down at the key card.
“That’s a pretty damn good one if I say so myself. I prefer the orange seraphosotil stuff in the back, in bags—kinda looks like the syrup they use at snow cone shops. And some chleredexine, also in the back. Comes in little black pillboxes. And this might sound a bit strange, but the Verex antivenom is actually quite the hallucinogen. I wouldn’t mind a few pre-prepped syringes of that, too.”
A few moments later I was back in the room, my hands full. I knew that my little sortie had to be on camera, but they hadn’t stopped me yet, and judging by how many people were on stims or Zeroes here, it was one of the bendable rules. “How’d you break your nose?”
“Who’s asking?”
“Just me.” I unscrewed the lid of one of the bottles and placed a gel cap in his hand. “The rest after.”
“Is this going to get me in trouble or something?”
“I’d sure hope not,” I said. “Simple question. How’d you break your nose?”
He inspected the pill like a jeweler, looking at it from above and below, bouncing it around in his hand. Then he popped it in his mouth. “We were trying to scare this kid—this Green named Aaron. It was his first day. Pierre and Rhys wanted him since he was the buddy of this supposedly really good new tech. And they thought if we could get them both—and all the other new greens—to think that Caelus was trying to hurt them, it would drive them into their arms. Looking for protection . . . or so went the logic.”
I tried not to show any reaction. “What did this Aaron guy look like?”
“Couldn’t really tell you. It was lights out and it was his first day, so I hadn’t seen him before then. I guess he kind of looked like you, but you’re a Blue from . . .”
“From D.” Good. On hopes that Zoellers hadn’t been in the cafeteria during the fight, I’d asked Simon to borrow his D undershirt, visible at the collar of my blue uniform, to make the story work. It wasn’t sized perfectly, but it was close.
“Still in last place?” he asked.
“You know it.”
He smiled. “It’s funny you keep a guy like Whistler in there. At some point you just gotta put the old dog down, right?”
“At some point,” I repeated. “And when you say scare this Aaron kid, what exactly do you mean?”
“Oh come on, you know what I mean. Rough him up. Give him the idea that he’s not safe in his bed and could be gotten to anytime. That kind of stuff scares the shit out of people.”
“But not like kill him or anything?”
“Are you kidding me? That would mean expulsion and Fleet prison in some hellhole colony. Not on my itinerary. And besides, they needed him and his friend in working order so they could, you know, try and blindside Caelus in a Challenge. How’d that work out, by the way? I thought it a pretty risky gambit myself. Tried to talk them out of it, but Rhys is the kind of guy that once he decides to do something, it’s done. No matter how strong a case someone makes or what new intel comes. Love him like a brother, but he’s a goddamn prick.”
“He’s go—” I almost said it, but I caught myself. “He was right, actually. Got a big, big win out of it.”
“Fuck yeah,” said Zoellers. “Fuck yeah. See, that’s why I’m, like, the henchman or whatever and he’s the soon-to-be-SO. That’s why people are starting to listen to him: Pierre, Fingers, Fin, Daries. It’s just a matter of time before he’s student captain.”
I played along and nodded. He seemed like one of those people who was so self-absorbed that everything was like some solo theatrical production, where his only concern was the effect his words would have on his current audience, not whether they’d be betraying the confidence of someone not present. It was all about attention, which could well account for why he was here, so I was trying to look as surprised and impressed and intrigued as I could, hoping to draw him out even further. “What do you think of Caelus?”
“Asshole. It’s all about the rules with him. Rules for the sake of rules for the sake of rules for the sake of rules. That and freaking three a.m. formation drilling in the Box. He’s an effective midlevel commander in a battle, sure. No contest. But it’s when you’re not ‘in battle’ that the real war is going on. And if you’re a dick and burn your guys out, you’re going to lose them. They’ll start taking stims, and then Zeroes to balance out the stims.” He punched me in the arm. “Which your block would know better than any . . . and pretty soon you’re in last place. So, it’s all about sustainability. Caelus may be fair and everything, but the shit that he makes everyone do, well, it’s not sustainable. And people are starting to see that. Rhys and Pierre are starting to see that.”
“How about Brandon?” I asked.
“How about another one of those black beauties? And again, who’s asking? You sure are curious for someone in D Block. You guys planning something?”
I was about to drop another pill in his hand but I stopped.
“Though I guess that’s the beauty of being an informant for D Block. You guys are so screwed that there’s literally nothing I could say. Strategy. Programming. Nothing that would make a big enough difference to swing a Challenge.” He chuckled. “Thankfully, for my conscience’s sake.” He made an opening and closing motion with his hand and I dropped the pill into it. “Best of both worlds, as they say.”
“And you were saying, about Brandon?”
“Brandon, Brandon, Brandon. Where do I start? Heroic one day, spineless the next. Self-hating. A real grab bag.”
“Do you think he’s working with Caelus?”
“Of course. That’s the genius part; he’s got everyone thinking that he’s their stooge and it’s made him the second-highest-ranking SO in the block. Not bad if you ask me. And if you ask me again, no one’s stooge could pull that off.”
“So whose side is he really on?” I asked.
“His own.”
“That doesn’t bother you?”
Zoellers laughed. “Brother, if that bot
hered me, I would’ve landed in psych long before I did.”
“So how come you’re here now? You said you were supposed to scare this kid, Aaron, but it sounds like . . .”
“It sounds like he scared me? I suppose you could say that. I guess I just freaked out. On some level I can’t help but think psych is the sanest place to be. You know what I mean? That if they’re sane, I don’t want to be. I want to be different from that pack of wolves out there.” He paused. “You think the same thing, don’t you? I can see it in your face; you’re dismayed. Just remember, though, ‘crazy’ just means ‘different’—that’s all it means. And the only reason it’s pejorative is because it’s the majority doling out the labels.”
“Well . . . I appreciate you taking the time. It really helps.”
“I’ve got nothing but time, as you can see um . . . I don’t believe you mentioned your name.”
“Taylor Hawkins,” I said.
“Taylor Hawkins,” he repeated to himself. “I honestly don’t see how any of that is going to help you out in a Challenge, Taylor Hawkins from D Block, but if you can make it work for you, I suppose you deserve to win.”
“‘Deserve’ is a strange word,” I said, and turned to leave. “See you on the other side, Maxamine Zoellers.”
“Oh, it’s just Max now. Plain old Max. You can only have a flowery name like that if you’re willing to back it up, and I’m not so hot to play that game anymore. My parents kind of threw me into the deep when they gave it to me. They meant well, but they’re oblivious artistic types. Tone-deaf to the cruelties of youth.”
I paused at the nurse’s station to return the key card and stood wavering for what had to be thirty seconds. And then I kept walking.
Chapter 40
I knew I could figure this out somehow, but it was like a dream where you can’t move and when you finally do the thing that you were after is blurring into the distance, just out of reach. I was so worn out from the lab and the drilling and the nightmares that no matter how hard I concentrated or lucid I became I couldn’t catch up to it.
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