Recon

by Tarah Benner

  “I have to tell you something, and I wanted us to be able to talk without being overheard.”

  “Okay,” I say with some effort.

  “Can you look at me?” he asks gently.

  I swallow. Leave it to Eli Parker to demand eye contact at a time like this. I meet his gaze, but the look in those eyes makes it too painful, so I focus instead on the bridge of his nose.

  “I’m being sent out again,” he says.

  “What?”

  “Soon.”

  Dread and panic flash through me. This is so wrong. “But you just got back! You were attacked! You’re still injured.”

  Eli shakes his head. “That’s exactly why Jayden is sending me out.” He sighs. “She’s trying to clean this up as quickly as possible.”

  Now there’s a euphemism if I ever heard one.

  “Won’t that look suspicious?”

  “Not at the rate she’s deploying. The board has declared a state of emergency at the perimeter. Seamus goes out tomorrow, and Miles is being sent out again next week. We have to stop the drifters before they get too close to the compound.”

  I look out into the dark expanse of desert. It looks deadly still — peaceful, even. It’s hard to imagine any humans alive out there.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “This is all my fault.”

  He shakes his head. “Stop saying that. I wouldn’t have let myself be dragged in if I didn’t feel responsible. And if I didn’t . . .” He stops and lets out an exasperated breath.

  I don’t even know what he was going to say.

  “Please be careful,” I whisper. “Don’t give Constance the satisfaction of making this easy.”

  “Oh, I won’t,” he says bitterly. “But that’s not what I came here to tell you, Riley.”

  “Stop calling me that!” I growl before I can stop myself. All the fear and disappointment have become too much for me. I hate that he makes me care despite everything and then rejects me.

  Eli’s gaze becomes serious. He doesn’t address my outburst but speaks in a low, fast voice. “I came up here to tell you that Jayden’s made a decision.” He swallows, and I brace myself for the worst. “When I go out there, you’re coming with me.”

  My stomach drops, and I feel suddenly dizzy. I’m sure he couldn’t have said what I thought he said. “But . . . I haven’t even . . .”

  “In two weeks, you’ll hit three months. You’ve already passed the minimum level of training, thanks to your pal Seamus.” He says Seamus’s name as though it’s left a bad taste in his mouth. “I’m sorry.”

  “But . . . she can’t,” I choke. “I was supposed to have a year!”

  I’m torn between the urge to run and the urge to throw up. All my extremities have gone numb, and I feel as though I could blow over.

  “I told you. Three months is the minimum when the compound’s declared a state of emergency. She’s rotating through her officers as fast as she can, but we’re understaffed. She wants to get your entire class trained ahead of schedule, but you’re the only one who’s ready right now.”

  “But why is she sending me out with you?”

  For a second, I swear he looks a little hurt, but that’s probably wishful thinking.

  “You have to go out with a higher-ranking officer for your first year,” he says, a little too defensively.

  “But why you?”

  Now I’m sure Eli was hurt by the question, because his voice is angry when he answers. “I requested to go out for your first deployment, okay? If Constance is trying to get rid of you, I don’t want you going out there with a moron like Seamus.”

  That tugs at my heart, but I push aside any temptation to see meaning in that gesture.

  I still like Eli, but that doesn’t mean I want to spend a week out on the Fringe with him in awkward silence. That’s what we’ve got ahead of us now that I’ve screwed up everything by kissing him.

  “Won’t that make it easier for them to get rid of us?”

  He shakes his head. “Jayden’s going to send us into a hot zone no matter what. They’re up to something, but we’ll be ready.”

  I let out an angry little huff. “You couldn’t have told me all of this before I — you know — threw myself at you?”

  His expression turns sympathetic. “Hey, no. No, Harper. Listen. That wasn’t your fault. It was mine. I let the lines get blurred between us. And I still would have requested you even if you had, you know . . . kissed me before I talked to Jayden.”

  I want to take solace in his words, but he looks incredibly uncomfortable, and all I can feel is blind panic. I can’t even find it in my power to be annoyed that he won’t own up to kissing me back.

  I take a step toward the edge of the deck and lay my head against the cool glass. The stars are brightly visible in the inky, cloudless sky. The Fringe almost looks beautiful, but I know better.

  In two weeks, I’ll be out there. I’ll be alone with Eli outside these glass walls. Constance will send us into danger, guaranteed. I’ll be facing an army of rogue drifters, the radiation, and the endless stretch of desert wasteland.

  In two weeks, I’ll be as good as dead.

  Author’s Note

  Thank you for reading Recon. I hope you enjoyed it. This was different from anything I’ve written before, due to the combination of research and speculation required to create Harper’s and Eli’s world within the compound.

  I read up on closed ecosystems such as Biosphere 2, a three-acre research facility in the Arizona desert, to get a feel for the challenges the compound would face during its first three generations.

  Biosphere 2 is a subject of controversy and fascination in the scientific community. In 1991, eight men and women went in as part of an experiment to see if humans could sustain themselves in a closed environment, growing their own food and recycling the air and water within the system. It was designed, in part, to test the application of such systems for space colonization.

  The first experiment lasted for two years, during which time the subjects experienced starvation, problems with the ecosystem, and conflict.

  Naturally, factions form when groups of humans are confined and isolated, which makes the compound’s tier system very natural. With so many people living in close quarters, the threat of riots would be very real, making Control a necessary part of compound life. It also made sense to me that underground fights and a den of debauchery like Neverland would be natural byproducts of confinement and the strict caste system.

  One of the big questions I faced when writing Recon was how big the compound would be. Obviously, the facility itself would need to be huge, but how many people would live inside?

  Scientists don’t seem to have reached a consensus on what a minimum viable population would be for a self-sustaining society. Some estimate as few as 150 humans would allow for normal reproduction for generations, but I’ve seen estimates as high as 44,000. I knew I wanted the compound to be big enough that not everyone would know each other, which is why I wanted there to be at least a few thousand living in the compound.

  With technological advancements, I believe a closed system will be possible in the future. My research led me to conclude that one of the biggest logistical issues would be growing enough food within the compound to sustain a population of thousands, which is why I provide a glimpse of the compound’s advanced agricultural techniques and the types of food the characters eat. You’ll notice Harper and the other cadets are always chowing down on very nutrient-dense foods like sweet potatoes, beets, and algae. Animal products like eggs are considered luxury items because the compound probably wouldn’t raise very much livestock, though it’s possible they would be eating cultured meat.

  The compound’s power source was another obvious question. Since the compound is located in the desert, fields of solar panels were a good source of renewable energy. However, the compound’s energy demands would likely be met by a combination of solar energy, algae-based biofuel, and methane gas produced by compoun
d waste. (The waste the compound’s citizens generate would have to go somewhere, which is why Waste Management is its own industry.)

  Finally, when creating technology for the characters to use, I wanted their devices to be more advanced versions of what we have today — not so futuristic that they would be impractical or difficult to imagine. This is why you still see souped-up versions of desktop computers and wearable devices. I don’t believe keyboards or computer monitors will become completely redundant for work, but the interfaces as I imagined them also incorporate gesture-recognition technology.

  I’m sure you still have unanswered questions about life inside the compound (and the events leading up to Death Storm), but more will be revealed as the series continues.

  In the meantime, make sure you sign up for my newsletter to stay up to date on the latest Fringe developments. And, as always, feel free to drop me a line to let me know what you think of the series so far.

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