Recon

by Tarah Benner

  “What?” Suddenly my anger is gone. All I can feel is the mounting panic constricting my chest. “What do you mean ‘taken care of’?”

  “Never you mind. This deployment should do it, I think. Our satellites show that drifters are congregating near the perimeter, waiting to launch an attack. If he comes back, we’ll just send him out again.”

  “You’re deploying him?” I choke. “Sending him into trouble to get rid of him?”

  I have to get out of here. I have to warn Eli.

  “It’s already done. I sent him out at oh-six hundred.”

  So many thoughts are firing in my head at once that I can’t do anything more than stare dumbfounded at Jayden. Eli was right when he said she was only looking out for herself. Jayden doesn’t give a shit about anyone.

  I’ve melted into my chair, and I feel as though I need to put my head between my knees and breathe into a bag.

  “You recruited him,” I say after a while. “How can you do that to him?”

  “It’s my job, Riley. I have to think about what’s best for this compound.”

  “So that’s it?” I splutter. “He’s disposable to you? You were just like him once.”

  “And I did what was best for the compound then, too. It’s why I recruited him. He understands. It’s the reason he recruited you.”

  “What?”

  A slow smile spreads across Jayden’s face. Oddly enough, she doesn’t look as pretty when she’s smiling. “Not quite as aggressively as I recruited him. But when he got the list of recruits who were recommended for Recon, he had to have you.”

  I feel as though I’ve been punched in the stomach. This can’t be true. That would mean that everything Eli told me from the beginning was a lie.

  Jayden must see the devastation written all over my face, because she adds, “He didn’t know about your viability score. Only the board and the bid committee are privy to that information.”

  I drag in a deep breath. So not everything had been a lie.

  “But when he saw a Systems-track girl who wasn’t recommended for Systems, he became obsessed.” She drags out the last word, and I can tell torturing me is giving her intense pleasure.

  “He dug up your permanent file. He saw you were a Fringe brat, just as he had been — saw you were suspended again and again for fighting in the Institute. And yet you weren’t stupid. You had good marks in all your higher-ed classes. He saw what I saw.”

  “And you didn’t care that I only have a thirty-three percent chance of living to the age of thirty?”

  “Oh, I’m counting on the fact that you won’t live to be thirty. A thirty-three percent chance is much higher than even a genetically perfect person’s odds of surviving ninety-six deployments. With an aptitude score that high, why wouldn’t I take you? Plus, when Constance decided to subsidize your recruitment, that was that.”

  “Did Eli know?” I ask. “About the sixty thousand?”

  I don’t care that I sound wounded or that Jayden’s air of satisfaction is growing stronger by the second. I have to know.

  “Would it matter if he did? He’s still the reason you’re here.”

  So that’s why she’s telling me all this. She wants to break our bond. But there’s more coming. I can see her fighting a smile.

  “What’s going to happen to me?”

  “Well, obviously, the arrest didn’t go as planned. Even Constance can’t prosecute someone based on circumstantial evidence when she has two witnesses come to her defense.”

  “As planned?”

  Jayden lets out a wistful sigh. “It would have been perfect, you know. You would have taken the fall for Taylor, and our little VocAps hiccup would have been wiped away. An act of terrorism within the compound is grounds for lethal injection. We accounted for everything — except your friends coming to your defense.”

  “We?”

  And then it hits me. Jayden is with Constance. Constance is responsible for the bombing. Constance tried to frame me for it.

  “You set me up,” I murmur.

  “Constance set you up,” she corrects. “I knew you’d try to hack into Taylor’s computer sooner or later. I just didn’t think it would take so long. I had to plant the seed.”

  “That day in training when Bear . . .”

  “You’re a smart girl. We tracked your interface going from Systems to Taylor’s office. I called in a little tip to your friend, Officer Dellwood . . .”

  “You killed Taylor?”

  “He had to go, Riley. It was regrettable, but he decided to grow a conscience after all these years. He felt guilty about recruiting so many for Recon when our fatality rates were rising. He even tried to fight the money coming in from Constance, since influencing the bidding goes against compound law. He became a liability.”

  “So you just murdered him?”

  Jayden fixes me with a serious look. “Constance is not Control, Riley. It was created to operate independently of the board . . . to step in if the board’s decisions could have dire consequences.

  “Our sole purpose is to preserve the human race — not just the compound itself. One individual’s life . . . even two or three . . . is not relevant. Keeping this compound and others functioning requires us to make the tough choices to do what we know is good for them. But we do have to move quietly. If people felt they had no control over their lives . . . society would collapse.”

  I sit completely frozen with shock as it all sinks in. There’s an urgency pounding through my veins, though. Deep down, I know Jayden wouldn’t be telling me all of this unless she planned to get rid of me.

  “What’s going to happen now?”

  She smiles. “Your time will come. It’s too bad. Things are getting much worse out there. We could have used you on the Fringe permanently.”

  “That’s why Constance paid sixty thousand for me to be in Recon?”

  Jayden nods. “The drifters are getting smarter, Riley. We needed someone with your skill set . . . someone who wouldn’t live long enough to become a liability the way Taylor did. It’s lucky Parker brought you to our attention.”

  “But why would Constance want all the drifters killed if your duty is to preserve the human race?”

  She fixes me with a blank stare. “There’s nothing left for humanity out there, Riley. Those who are left are dying out, but right now . . . they’re impeding progress.”

  I stand up to leave, simultaneously disgusted and stunned that she’s letting me walk out of here alive. “Why are you telling me this?” I ask, dreading the answer.

  “To show you what happens to people who don’t do what they’re told. We still need you, Riley . . . for now. I need to make sure you’re . . . motivated to make the right choice.”

  I glare at her, the hatred humming in every cell. “Motivated?”

  “You’ll be dead soon anyway, but your friend Celdon . . . he could have a long, happy life ahead of him. That’s how I know you’ll do what needs to be done and keep our little conversation private.”

  Nausea builds in my stomach. I take two purposeful strides toward the door but stop with my hand on the knob. I have to know. “What’s Eli’s viability score?”

  She sighs, and for the first time, there’s genuine regret in her voice. “Ten.”

  Before she can pile on to what I’ve learned, I’m flying out of her office and down the tunnel. It’s starting to get crowded. People are going to the canteen, coming back, heading to training, or going to the intel rooms to monitor Fringe activity. Nobody pays me any attention as I fight against the wave of people.

  My head is spinning, and the blind panic is making my heart feel as though it might jump out of my chest. I stumble through the crowd, holding down the tears and the bile burning in my throat.

  I punch in the code to my room and slam the door, breathing hard. Jayden’s words are still ringing in my head, and I have this horrible sinking feeling that wasn’t there before.

  Jayden is with Constance. Constance wants me
dead. Jayden threatened Celdon’s life and mine. Eli lied. He’s the reason I’m here, and now Jayden wants him dead, too.

  I can’t hold the tears in anymore. I slide back against the cool metal door and bang my head back hard.

  Everything is falling apart. I knew I could get into trouble when I started digging into my bid, but I never expected it would get me and Eli killed.

  Once the initial shock wears off, I’m pissed by what is bothering me the most. It isn’t the fact that Constance wants me and my friends dead or the fact that Jayden played me to get Taylor out of the way. It’s the fact that Eli has been lying to me the entire time.

  I thought he cared about me. I thought we were friends, at least.

  That night in his room, I got caught up in the heat of the moment. I felt something. I thought he enjoyed it, too. Or maybe he was faking it — just as he played dumb when I cornered him about my bid.

  Then again, Eli also protected me when I was arrested. Maybe he felt guilty. Maybe he cared about me. Either way, he was deployed early because of what I did, and that guilt neutralizes some of the anger and panic that’s raging inside me.

  My tears dry up fast — much faster than they would have three months ago. I realize being in Recon has made me tougher. The need for food is winning out over my impulse to sit on the floor feeling sorry for myself.

  I splash some cold water on my face so that no one will see that I’ve been crying and head out the door.

  If Constance wants me dead, they’re going to have to get their hands dirty. I refuse to die on the Fringe. They won’t be able to write my death off as another statistic. Jayden is going to have to put a bullet through my head herself.

  twenty-six

  Harper

  Even though I’m wildly distracted, I can tell something is off the second I step into the brightly lit canteen.

  At first I think I’m imagining the drama because Eli is gone, and for the first time since Bid Day, there’s no one in Recon looking out for me.

  But then a Waste Management guy turns around in the mess line and sneers at me. He nudges his scruffy friends, and the rest of them shift around in line and mutter under their breath.

  I don’t hear everything they’re saying, but I catch the word “bitch.”

  Any other day I’d shove past them and ignore it, but there’s a strange prickle of alarm on the back of my neck. I glance behind me and quickly realize I’m the only Recon worker in line. I’m surrounded by tier-three men who look as though they’re out for blood.

  Maybe I’m just being paranoid because I know my number is up.

  But then a worker in the mess line who smiled at me just the other day shoots me a deadly glare over the glass partition and slops boiled kale all over the rim of my bowl. I throw her a wary look and take my food before she decides to starve me completely.

  Looking around for a place to sit, I immediately notice the tight knots of people bunched together at every table. Normally the canteen is a blur of mismatched colors. Today, nobody is mingling with other sections, and Recon has been sequestered to one corner of the canteen. I see a mop of bright red hair whip around, and Lenny gives a little jerk of her head that’s anything but subtle.

  Relieved, I squeeze in between her and Bear and catch a whiff of a few dozen Recon bodies all crammed in close together.

  “What the hell is going on?” I ask.

  “It’s bad news,” Lenny whispers. “The whole compound has turned on us.”

  “Why?”

  “Someone on the board leaked that a bunch of deployed Recon operatives have gone AWOL in the last few weeks.”

  “What?” My mind instantly goes to Eli, and I panic. But he was just sent out this morning. He can’t be missing yet.

  “Yeah.” Lenny shifts in her seat and looks around as though she doesn’t want to be overheard. “And now they’re saying that someone in Recon planted the bomb. They think the AWOL Recon have split off from the compound . . . gone rogue.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Of course it’s ridiculous!” snaps Lenny. “Who the hell would stay out there voluntarily?”

  “They’re trying to cover something up,” says Bear. “That bomb didn’t come from anyone inside the compound. Nobody’s that stupid . . . not even the ExCon guys.”

  I resist the urge to shout “Constance” from the top of my lungs and take a deep breath. “What made them decide to leak this now?” I ask.

  “Dunno. I guess they couldn’t just keep sending guys out there without any coming back and expect that people wouldn’t notice.”

  Dread spills into my gut, and I drag in a heavy stream of air. “Eli’s out there now,” I whisper.

  Their expressions mirror the sucker punch I felt when Jayden told me.

  “What?”

  “They sent him out this morning.”

  They’re silent for a beat, and then Lenny’s expression twists from flabbergasted to curious. “Wait . . . how do you know he got sent out?”

  There’s a wicked grin pulling at the corners of her mouth, and I feel my face go red. None of them ever mentioned the ugly rumor circulating about me, but I know they must have heard it.

  “I was summoned,” I say, trying to keep my expression neutral. “By Jayden.”

  “What did she want?” Bear asks, keeping his eyes on his food.

  I grin. He’s probably the only cadet who hates her more than I do. “She wanted to talk about my attitude in training,” I lie. “I guess I’ve been talking back to Eli too much.”

  “Oh please,” scoffs Lenny. “He shouldn’t dish it out if he can’t take it. He’s relentless with you. I would have punched him in his beautiful mouth our very first day. Oh, wait . . . you did.”

  Lenny dissolves into laughter for a moment but then seems to remember what we were discussing. “But that’s terrible he’s been sent out,” she says quickly. “He was just starting to grow on me.”

  I swallow, thinking Eli had done more than grow on me in the last few weeks. Even though I’m furious that he lied, I actually miss him.

  We finish our breakfast and make the long awkward walk through the canteen. I catch a few hateful remarks as we pass, and I’m amazed at how quickly the hostility has escalated in the compound.

  As we descend to the lower tunnels, I switch on my interface to check the stream for the board leak. But just as I open the news app, something catches my eye in the corner of my interface. Right next to my battery icon is a flashing red light.

  A chill shoots down my spine. I switch my interface off quickly, though I know it doesn’t matter. I glance around, but the others haven’t noticed anything strange. I can’t say what I’ve found. I can’t tell anyone.

  I have no idea how Constance got the malware onto my device. I haven’t opened a single message from anyone I don’t know.

  Before I can digest this alarming new development, Bear pushes the doors to the training center open. The other cadets are milling around across the room, but our corner is empty.

  Eli is gone, of course, but then my eyes land on a sturdy-looking man going at a punching bag against the far wall. He moves more than Eli does when he boxes. He’s short, energetic, and light on his feet. When he sees us enter, he stops what he’s doing and bounds up like a golden retriever, mopping the sweat off his ruddy face.

  “Good morning, everybody.”

  Lenny throws me a sideways look that embodies her trademark “What the fuck?”

  He’s only a few years older than us — probably a year older than Eli — with closely cropped strawberry-blond hair and a pale, freckly complexion. When he smiles, it stretches so wide it looks as if it hurts.

  “I’m Lieutenant Seamus Duffy. I’ll be overseeing your training.”

  I lift an eyebrow at his use of the word “overseeing.” Eli didn’t oversee; he commanded.

  “Just until Eli comes back, right?” blurts Lenny.

  Seamus gives a slight nod, and Lenny and I exchange a look. The
lieutenant doesn’t think Eli will be coming back.

  “Lieutenant Parker tells me you’ve already moved on to sparring?”

  I nod, feeling the hurt sting my insides. Eli had time to give Seamus a lesson plan, but he didn’t bother to tell me he’d been deployed on a death mission.

  “Well, that’s fantastic. But I’d like to start today with some work on the pads and ease into sparring to get a feel for your capabilities.”

  Lenny scoffs audibly, and Bear and Blaze exchange an irritated look. Seamus pretends not to notice. He claps his hands together and grins. “All right! Let’s go!”

  We each grab a pad from a stack in the corner and pair off. I join Kindra and Lenny because Seamus doesn’t strike me as the hands-on type of instructor.

  He starts us with an easy warm-up of straight punches and a few kicks, which sucks. Today of all days, I could use the distraction of a tough workout.

  Seamus moves around the room, praising us for our good technique. My annoyance with him is mounting by the second. Eli never praised us, which bothered me at first, but Seamus sounds like a doting parent. It’s tough to concentrate and even harder to take myself seriously when he’s being all sunshine-and-rainbows.

  Once we’re warmed up, he moves us into a drill that Eli never did, where we go down the line one at a time and throw a different combative at everyone holding a pad. Bear almost sends me flying across the room with his side kick, and Seamus looks impressed. I want to hate him, but he seems like a nice guy.

  After an hour, he finally lets us split into groups to spar. Kindra is looking pale and feverish, and Seamus quietly tells her to sit out.

  I am stunned. Eli never would have let Kindra sit out — not until she passed out.

  I find it’s much easier to flip Lenny than Eli — almost too easy. She falls forward every time I buck my hips and hits the mat with a resounding smack when I flip her over.

  After the fifth time, she swears loudly and rubs her shoulder. Her face is almost the same color as her hair, and I can tell she’s getting irritated. She’s only managed to flip me twice — probably because she’s used to working with Kindra, who’s roughly the size of a leprechaun.