by Fonda Lee
Donovan sat still for a long moment; then he swung his leg back over the ledge and stood up. He’d brought Anya out here hoping to show her the wondrous things about the Round, to bring her into his life a little bit, to weave a few more threads into the strangely powerful but shaky connection between them. But all Anya saw was inequity and alien oppression and more evidence in support of the Sapience cause. “Why do you like me?”
Anya looked up, her mouth slightly open in confusion.
“You’ve no reason to care about me.” Donovan heard his voice come out stony with hurt. “If I stand for everything you oppose, why do you like me? Why kiss me if you don’t want my kind to exist?”
“I … I never said I don’t want you to exist.” She still sounded angry, but also uncertain. “I don’t know. You’re … you’re always decent to me.” She hesitated, reminding Donovan darkly that her basis of comparison for guys started with Kevin Warde. “I’ve seen you risk your life to save people. My brain keeps pointing out that you’ve got that armor and that uniform … but my heart says you’re different. You’re a good person, someone who wants to help those who need it. You’re not like other stripes.”
Instead of reassuring him, Anya’s words made Donovan feel empty inside. He shook his head, slowly and heavily. “You’re wrong. There’s nothing special about me. I’m an exo and a stripe like any other. The reason you think I’m different is because I’m the only exo you’ve actually met.” Jet, Vic, Thad, Cass, Leon … they were all as brave and decent as he was. More so. Even her good opinion of him was based on Sapience prejudice.
Donovan sighed. “We should get you back to the hotel.”
A slightly stricken expression swept across Anya’s eyes. She opened her mouth as if to say something more; if she had, if she’d voiced anything remotely conciliatory, told him she wanted to stay longer, anything, really, he would’ve reached out to her again, taken her hand back into his, tried to return them to the warm place they’d been in together a few minutes ago.
She didn’t. She closed her mouth and nodded.
They made their way back through the Towers in near silence. There was a heaviness between them now. Donovan felt as if he’d been through such a gamut of emotions in one evening that he no longer trusted even his own confusion and disappointment. He drove directly back to the hotel. Fortunately, there had been a SecPac shift change during their absence so he didn’t have to explain to Demetrius why they hadn’t returned with any new clothes.
He escorted Anya back up to her hotel room door. He didn’t try to kiss her again. Instead, he squeezed her hand, and trying hard to think of what to say, he began, “Anya, I still …”
“Thanks for taking me around. It was nice of you, and the view was really pretty.” She gave him a polite, distancing half-smile, then let herself into the room and closed the door.
He was not surprised to find Jet waiting in the living room when he returned.
“Where’ve you been? Never mind, don’t answer that.” Jet muted the wall screen, which was broadcasting live, around-the-clock coverage and commentary of the Future Summit. He sat forward and fixed Donovan with an accusing glare. “So how was she? Your sape girlfriend.”
Anger rose so quickly into Donovan’s face that he felt as if he’d put his head into an oven. If he looked at his partner, he might punch him in the mouth. Jet had no idea what had happened tonight and how unhappy he was right now. Donovan dropped into the chair nearest the door and unlaced his boots with ferocious jerks. “That was out of line, Officer Mathews,” he growled.
“You’re the one who’s out of line, and skirting pretty close to out of erze again too.” Jet’s grimace was fierce as he stood. “I never liked you skulking around that apartment in the TransHabs. And now she shows up here. In the Round! She’s a squishy, and she’s a sape. You can’t trust her, Lesser D. Seeing her is not only a terrible idea, it’s a SecPac security concern.”
Considering the way his time with Anya this evening had ended, Jet’s words struck home with painful validity, but it only made Donovan angrier. “This isn’t any of your business, Jet.”
Jet stared at him. “Whose is it, then?” He slowed each word. “I’m your erze mate. We’ve known each other since we were four. You think I’m saying all this to be a jerk? I’m trying to—”
“Scorch off.” Donovan was on his feet as well. “It didn’t go well, all right? Are you happy? I like her and I don’t think I can stop liking her, but when I saw her tonight … at first it was great, but then it was … weird … and we said some things that …” He burned in a humiliating loss for words. “It wasn’t the same.”
Jet appeared to also be at a loss for words. For a long moment, they stood at an awkward stalemate. “I’m not happy,” Jet said at last. “I wouldn’t be like that. Relieved, maybe.” He rubbed his face. “Look, I just don’t want to go through anything like last year again. It’d be better if you could put all that behind you. Things are bad enough now without—”
He was cut off by Donovan’s strangled noise of astonishment. In an effort to avoid eye contact, Donovan had turned his face toward the silent wall screen. What he saw there now made his blood turn to ice and the panotin pour to the surface of his body in a flood of rising armor. He stumbled forward and jabbed the control to take the screen off mute.
“—rupt this news segment to make a special announcement.” Kevin Warde spoke seriously into the camera. He was standing in front of a plain wall in what appeared to be an empty room with no furniture, no windows, and no distinguishing features at all. Donovan stepped toward the impossible image in disbelief, hands curling as if he could somehow reach out and seize Kevin through the screen. How had Warde hijacked a live news broadcast?
Jet’s mouth dropped open in disbelief. His exocel rose into sharp ridges up his arms. “What in all erze … ?”
Kevin’s arms were crossed over a black T-shirt and camo-pattern vest. The dark, piercing eyes that Donovan remembered so well gazed out intently at his invisible audience from under the curved brim of his ball cap. “My fellow patriots,” Kevin declared. “A century of tireless resistance has paid off. The day will soon come when Earth will finally be free of alien occupation.” He paused to emphasize the significance of his statement. “This may seem like a time of victory, but the truth is that the fight has only begun. The lapdog government of West America is meeting with alien forces as we speak to determine how to maintain their grip on power. They would continue to keep us down, with the help of traitors among us like this one.”
The camera view shifted to the right. Brett—no, not Brett, Jonathan, was kneeling on the floor, his striped hands bound in front of him. Dull, hopeless resignation showed in every shadow of his horrifically bruised face. His blackened eyes were distant and unfocused as he recited, in a voice devoid of any inflection or emotion, “My name is Jonathan Resnick. I’m a soldier-in-erze and an undercover agent of the Global Security and Pacification Forces. Last year, I infiltrated and betrayed a Sapience cell. My actions resulted in the death or capture of more than a hundred rebels.”
The camera pulled back to include Kevin, who nodded in approval, then spoke with rousing conviction. “People who betray their own species deserve to be punished for their crimes. True patriots, True Sapience, will never compromise or negotiate with oppressors and traitors. We’ve fought for more than a hundred years. We’re on the cusp of taking back our planet. We refuse to settle for anything less than the freedom and justice we deserve.”
Kevin set the barrel of his gun against Jonathan’s temple and pulled the trigger.
Donovan was eleven years old when he first stood alone in front of Soldier Werth. His future erze master asked him only one question: “Why do you wish to be a soldier-in-erze?”
For the previous two weeks, Donovan and his exo classmates had been put through a battery of physical and mental aptitude testing as part of the erze selection process. Each evening, Donovan’s father quizzed him. Which tests had
he been given today? How did he think he performed? Did he feel prepared for tomorrow’s evaluations? It was important that he get enough sleep and eat a good breakfast each morning. Yes, Father.
Why did he want to be a soldier-in-erze? Donovan stood with his armor politely lowered, pretending to listen to the translation machine repeat Soldier Werth’s words. He was nervous about giving the right answer. All day long, students had been called out of class for individual interviews. A declared personal preference was taken into account when it came to erze assignments, but it was certainly not the determining factor. Donovan swallowed; Soldier Werth’s large, unblinking eyes were even more intimidating than his long, armored limbs and fearsome-looking stripes. Some children, even exos, were too frightened to speak in his presence.
“Answer honestly,” his father had advised.
“I want to be in the same erze as my best friend.” Jet had wanted to be a stripe since they were five years old. When Soldier Werth did not indicate any approval or disapproval of his response, Donovan became more nervous and kept talking. “Being in SecPac is dangerous and Jet’s going to need someone to back him up. No one else would do as good a job as me because I’ve been his friend the longest.” He wasn’t sure what else to say, and Soldier Werth still hadn’t reacted. Desperately, “I can be a good stripe, zun.”
After what seemed an interminable pause, Soldier Werth dipped one fin. “You may go.”
At the time, Donovan had been certain that his answer had not been sufficient, and he was honestly more relieved than overjoyed when he found out he was to receive Soldier’s markings. Surely his scores in other areas had compensated for his lackluster interview. Only four years later, on a sunny, wind-blasted ridge of the Altai Mountains, did Donovan come to understand what the Soldier erze expected in its human members.
On that day, he’d labored his way up a rocky embankment with a rifle over his back, wearing only shorts, a T-shirt, and boots against a cold so brutal that it seemed to freeze the moisture in his mouth and the sweat against his armored skin. His lungs and legs were screaming in protest and he wasn’t sure if he felt light-headed from the thin air up here or sheer accumulated fatigue. The other thirty-five members of SecPac Cadre 198 Alpha panted up the ridge along with him, managing, somehow, to keep their rough formation together as loose stones slid under their feet, tumbling down the slope and over the edge of the precipice.
Donovan spared a glance behind and instantly regretted it. A misplaced step here would result in a painful and humiliating trip back down the cliff at speeds much higher than he’d experienced on the way up, and he’d likely take out a few teammates behind him as part of the descent. Only two more weeks of this, he told himself. I can survive two more weeks. Then he could look forward to six months back in Round Three, free from the torment of biannual Combat Readiness Preparation—CRP for short, or as trainees called it, “crap sessions.”
“Hurry, please.” Amrita, from Round Ten in Indo Tibet, was Donovan’s partner today. She was no stranger to high altitudes and blistering cold. Clambering just ahead of him, she latched armored fingers around a jutting stone and shoved her boot into a foothold, testing it with her full weight. The back of her sweat-drenched tank top was frozen as stiff as cardboard. Amrita was incredibly tough and hilariously polite. Many of the female soldiers-in-erze kept up with their male peers in terms of banter and ribaldry, but Amrita never tried. She could do push-ups for as long as anyone, but would say, in her slightly lilting voice, “Please pass me the E720 plain-tip cartridges,” as if she were asking for lemon wedges at tea.
Amrita looked back at him. “This part’s less steep. Follow my path. And hurry, please.” A hint of urgency had crept into her voice. “We’re at twenty-five minutes.”
They were expected to cover the prescribed four-mile distance in under thirty minutes. A perfectly reasonable expectation for young, fit exos—unless they were practically unclothed at five degrees below zero Fahrenheit and the last quarter of a mile involved scrambling up a frozen mountainside. To stay warm, they had to keep their exocels fully raised, but that slowed their pace and wore a person out fast. The key was to get your core temperature up quickly, bring your armor down partway, and make up time like hell on the flat sections, then armor up again when the cold and wind caught up to you as you crawled the steep segments.
Donovan watched Amrita’s foot placements, following her lead. She was nimbler at this part than he was, but though she urged him on, she didn’t get ahead of him. That wasn’t allowed.
Amrita reached the top of the embankment and Donovan hurried to clamber up beside her, squinting against the glare of the stark Mongolian sunlight, lungs and muscles burning even as his teeth chattered. Flat ground lay ahead of them at last; Donovan repositioned his rifle, gripping it in proper carry position as he pushed his numb legs into a run. Amrita might be quicker than him on the climb, but Donovan was faster in a straight sprint. He passed her, falling to a brisk but controlled pace directly in front of his partner and taking the brunt of the wind resistance as they headed into the final stretch. Less than thirty paces ahead of them ran the two South Americans from Round Twelve, Fernando and Matias, then Jet and his current partner, long-legged Kamogelo from Round Seventeen. At the very front of the group, two zhree Soldiers—the group’s pacers—led the way with their rapid, six-limbed scuttle. Donovan heard Amrita closing at his heels; he rebalanced his overworked exocel and lengthened his stride, pushing them both harder toward the finish point.
Thaddeus Lowell jogged down the line in the opposite direction, fresh-faced and shouting at the top of his lungs. As one of the three cadre counselors, Thad was enthusiastic in fulfilling his responsibility to encourage the younger exos. “Come on, move your fat asses, you lead-footed slackers! A little cold never hurt a stripe. Be glad you’re not doing your crap session at Round Fifteen!” That’s where Vic was now, with Cadre 198 Foxtrot in a desert in North-West Africa.
“Round Three represent!” Thad gave Donovan a high five as they passed each other. Donovan was too exhausted to reply, and his lips were too cold to form words anyway. He and Amrita passed the finish markers—two small piles of stones with yellow spray paint on them—and staggered into line next to Jet. Four seconds later, Leon and his partner, Maddison from Round One in Australasia, huffed up on their other side. It was too cold to drop armor, but the exos stood attentively at parade rest, noisily recovering their breath and trying not to shiver too much as they cooled. Within minutes, the rest of the cadre arrived in pairs and fell into line.
Except for one. The last to arrive, big, sandy-haired Dmitri from Round Seven, sprinted into place two seconds before the timer went off in Commander Li’s hand. Everyone down the line breathed a sigh of relief. It was the first time they’d all made it in under thirty minutes.
Commander Li, who was taking time out of his busy schedule to spend three days as a guest instructor at Camp Govi before returning east to Round Eleven, was quite a bit shorter than Commander Tate, but with his arms crossed, armor raised, and SecPac uniform immaculate, Donovan could tell that he was as towering a figure in Round Eleven as Tate was in Round Three. The commander stowed the stopwatch and surveyed the group of armored young men and women. His piercing eyes reached the end of the line and landed on Dmitri.
“Where is your partner?” he demanded. The portable translation machine Li carried picked up his words and transmitted them in English into the earbud in Donovan’s left ear. Every trainee wore the same device to communicate with international cadre mates and instructors, as well as zhree supervisors, the staff Nurse, and occasional visitors. Donovan shifted his eyes and surreptiously counted down the line; he knew his cadre mates were doing the same. Thirty-five. One missing. Dmitri’s partner today, Jong-Kyu from Round Eleven, was not there.
“He had to turn back, sir,” Dmitri explained in hurried Russian. “He caught sick last night and had trouble breathing within the first few minutes. One of the nurses-in-erze took—”
“To … to run the course in under thirty minutes, sir,” Dmitri stammered.
“Wrong!” Li barked at him. “The orders were for the cadre to run the course in under thirty minutes. I do not see the entire cadre present, do you, trainee?”
“No, sir,” Dmitri said, visibly paling. Donovan cringed in sympathy for him. Dmitri had unwittingly broken the first rule of being a soldier-in-erze: always, always stay with your erze mate.
During CRP, partner assignments changed every three days. It was disorienting the first few times, but one became accustomed to it. Everything was done in two-person teams. Each pair of exos was expected to arrive at training activities together and to complete tasks jointly. All grades and punishments applied to both trainees. The rule held outside of training exercises as well. You didn’t leave the dining hall table until your assigned erze mate was done eating. If your partner needed to use the bathroom, you went too and stood outside the door.
It bordered on ludicrous, but there was a purpose. In cities around the world, SecPac officers patrolled in pairs, which scrambled at a moment’s notice into strike teams of four, six, eight, ten, or more to conduct missions or react to terrorist threats. SecPac training and terminology was the same across the world; with a few words of shorthand speech, two teams from one Round and two from another could fall into an instant understanding of roles and function as if they’d been trained together. Under such circumstances, it was vital that they trust each other immediately.
“You have all failed this exercise,” Commander Li declared. “And whose fault is that?”
“Mine, sir,” Dmitri admitted miserably.
“Wrong!” Li barked again. “Pok Jong-Kyu failed to inform his erze mates that he could not run the course without assistance. The rest of the cadre failed to notice the problem. The fault lies with all of you. The failure belongs to all of you. Drop! Armor down!”