Stallings ordered the last soldier to Sim training before he acknowledged her. “Private, I know this is difficult for you, so if you'd like another day—”
She interrupted him. “Who were those two colonels in the courtyard? Did they come through here?”
“Private, don't forget who you're speaking to. Address me as s—”
“Who were they? Why were they talking about me like that?”
“Private, I understand you might be having a rough time, but that is no excuse for this behavior.”
Emily sighed. “Sir, two colonels were out there with me.”
Stallings looked past her at the courtyard, his expression confused. “Private, no one has been outside but you.”
“Sir, they were smoking cigars. You can still smell it. They talked like you all wanted me to fail.”
He placed his hand on her shoulder. “Private, I had to keep the MPs from dragging you back inside the Annex. Trial soldiers aren't allowed in the courtyard.”
She pointed at the glass doors. “They were there. I saw them.”
Stallings straightened to a rigid military posture. “Private, no one else went outside. I understand that you and Private Holcomb were close, and we've given you a bit of leeway because of that relationship. But I'm losing my patience. I suggest you go to your room and get a good night's rest. I'll see you in class tomorrow.”
“And if I want to join the other soldiers?” She glanced at the clock—18:46. Plenty of time.
“Private, I don't recommend you do that.”
“Because you didn't expect me go back yet? You need time to make sure I fail?”
“Private Heath, I don't know what you thought you heard outside, but you should go to your room. Get your head straight. Don't go to Simulator training.”
“You'd like that, wouldn't you?” She slowly backpedaled, wondering if he might grab her at any moment.
“Don't test me, Private.”
“Sorry, sir.” She spun around and raced down the hallway. The black streak in the carpet passed under her as she ran through the first corridor, where, behind the pharmacy counter, the obese nurse and humongous MP stared with curious expressions. In the next corridor, she sidestepped two patrolling MPs, ignoring their grumbles about her reckless speed. She could have listened; no pounding footsteps gave her chase; she had plenty of time. But her legs didn't ache, lungs didn't burn.
At 18:54, Emily reached the elevator hallway and waited behind the usual crowd of grim-faced soldiers. Soon a murmur of whispers and turning heads found her.
“What is she doing here?”
“This soon?”
“They said she wouldn't be back for another day at least.”
Then a single chime rang out and silenced the gossip. As the doors of a single elevator slid open, the soldiers began to move, but it took Emily a moment to notice she wasn't getting any closer to the front. She stood on her toes. A speck of light emanated from the still-empty elevator. Had the officers ordered the soldiers to stop her? Was this why Stallings didn't follow her?
Move already, she wanted to scream.
They moved all right.
Soldiers on the left faced right and soldiers on the right faced left. The center, where the two halves met, appeared engaged in a nose-to-nose stare down. Soon the soldiers shuffled apart in a moment of perfect unison. A clear path to the elevator formed. At the end of the row, a petite girl wrapped one hand around the safety laser, preventing the doors from closing, and motioned to Emily with her other hand. “They aren't going to wait forever,” the girl said.
As Emily walked the path, soldiers stared at their boots, glanced at the ceiling or looked blankly ahead—anywhere but at her. She patted the petite girl on the shoulder. “Thank you.”
Petite-girl didn't answer. Like the other soldiers, she gazed in another direction.
Emily stepped inside the elevator and went to the back. Before she could turn around, the bell chimed. She hadn't heard the pounding of boots, the scratching of fatigues or the nervous coughs—the sounds of soldiers packing into the cramped space. A sliver of green peeked behind the closing elevator doors. She descended alone.
After changing, Emily jogged to vat 7. The attending white-coat, a young brunette, glanced up from the electronics and flinched. “I—was told not to expect you tonight.”
Emily said nothing and climbed the stairs. There would be no toe-dipping test of the gel temperature tonight; her skin already burned. She hopped into the vat.
The white-coat fumbled with the oxygen tube. “I think I should ask my commanding officer for permission.”
Emily ripped the tube from the woman's hand. “Just do it—please?”
The white-coat shrugged in the direction of some unseen person inside the overhead control room. A moment later she looked at Emily. “Good luck.”
The world faded.
Emily's eyes adjusted to the Sim, and black letters, stenciled on a brown backdrop, came into focus—Property of the US Army. It was a supply box, which sat in the center of an eight-box-high column. The stacked rows formed a constricting passageway, an elaborate maze where the odor of gun oil and cardboard lingered in the air. A faint crackle of gunfire zinged across the mammoth ceiling of rusted metal, bent steel and broken windows.
Near her, seven soldiers scurried toward opposite intersections with no sense of unity in maneuvers or grouping. Three-four split, then two-five split, even a seven-zero split.
“Stay close,” Emily said. “Don't run off alone.”
A soldier sprinted up to her, almost butting his visor against hers. “What the hell are you doing?” A tiny A1 floated above his head.
It's only a number. Emily straightened her posture and grabbed a wad of his shirt. “I'm assuming command. If you want to live, you'll agree.” What if he doesn't?
He knocked aside her hand. “The hell you are.”
“Listen to her,” a familiar voice said. Damon waved the other wandering squad members back to the group. Emily stared at him, the soldier who, just a few days ago, seemed hell-bent on order, control and honoring a strict chain-of-command.
“Yeah,” said A3, a girl. “She knows what she's doing.”
As A1 studied Emily from head to toe, the rest of the squad gathered behind her. She thought about taking off her helmet, letting him see the rage in her eyes. But Matt would have never assumed command by force or fear. He wanted trust. “I can do this,” Emily said. “Let me get us to bed early.”
A1 seemed to focus on his dwindling ranks. “I hope you have something good in mind.”
“Where's our defense point?” Emily asked.
He pointed at the back intersection, which forked left and right into two passageways, each barely wide enough for a single soldier. “Doesn't seem like a lot of space for us to put up a decent defense.”
“We may not have to.” She looked at the top boxes. “Damon, give me a lift.”
He knelt near her legs, and she planted her left foot in his hands and pushed. The fluid upward movement sent her head above the highest box, where she leaned forward and grabbed the opposite edge. After pulling herself across the top, she rose to her feet. The high ground position revealed a maze the size of a football field. In the distance, shaking boxes and faint voices pinpointed the defender locations.
Emily glanced at the ceiling, between two support poles. A broken window gave her a view of the beautiful night sky, and the lone star twinkled once as if it offered a reassurance of her strategy.
She slid around and hung her head off the ledge. “Damon, load up your satchel with grenades.”
Her squad mates dropped their explosives into Damon's pack until it stretched at the seams. Emily reached down and grabbed his hand. As he climbed, his fingers scraped her arms and dug across her shoulders and spine. Damon stood and shifted the satchel to his side.
Emily pointed at A1. “Take everyone to the back, and clear out any boxes in your way. You have to get to the rear wall.”
/> “We'll be abandoning our defense point,” A1 said.
“Just do it, and whatever happens don't stop clearing boxes.”
“Affirmative,” A1 said, and led the squad to the back of the maze.
“What's the plan?” Damon asked.
While filling her knapsack with grenades, she nodded in the direction of the two support poles. “I'll take the left, you get the right. Set your grenades to ten seconds and drop the bag on the base.”
“You think the explosion will bring down the ceiling? Won't that kill our squad, too?”
“If the defenders die before us, does it matter?” She leapt across the first gap in the box maze. “Let's go.”
She moved toward the center, and the defender's voices rose again, now with full clarity. They discussed strategy. The consensus seemed to agree on a plan to send twenty-five into the maze for an assault. The remaining fifteen would stay back in case they needed a defense. Like the oil plants.
A few gentle leaps later, she and Damon crossed the last intersection, and she raised three fingers. After pulling three grenades from the bag, she twisted each timer to ten seconds.
“Don't do it.” The voice was hushed like a whisper but still pounded inside her ears. “Don't you see what's happening?”
She spun and looked at Damon. “What's the problem?”
He shrugged. “I didn't say anything.”
“Did you hear that?” a defender asked.
“Take defensive positions,” another said. “Don't move forward.” Neither sounded like the voice Emily had heard.
She poked her fingers through the pins, placed the three grenades inside the bag and squeezed her free hand around the opening. She gave Damon single nod, and he did the same. Then she shoved down. The pins popped from the grenades and twirled around her fingers as the bag plummeted into the abyss. She jumped off the opposite edge, her last sight being Damon's helmet disappearing below the box tops. “Go,” she shouted.
The moment she rounded the second corner, a thunderous explosion reverberated through the complex. Shards of glass cascaded from the ceiling, wailing when they hit the ground. At the halfway point of her retreat, the roar behind her intensified. A sweltering heat penetrated her fatigues, and sweat dripped in her eyes.
Emily and Damon met at the intersection of their squad's defense point. Dented boxes, with guns spilling out of them, and pieces of torn cardboard littered the floor. Emily waded through the mess until she reached the rear wall, a thirty-foot-wide area of cleared space. There, her squad stood motionless, mesmerized by something in the distance. When she turned to look, she also entered the trance.
Flames stretched skyward like dancing fingers, heating the metal beams to a crisp orange glow. The back half of the building warped inward with a shriek of twisting steel. At the far end, the ceiling dipped below the fire.
Then it collapsed.
The world faded.
Congratulations!
You have completed the objective.
Total time:
Ten minutes, six seconds.
Ending ACES training.
Emily's eyes didn't need to adjust; her moment in the darkness seemed as if she had only blinked. Around the vat stood three white-coats and the pervert, each with the same blank face. The pervert tapped his finger against the glass cover of his wristwatch while one of the white-coats stared at the digital clock above the locker room doors.
Emily yanked the breathing tube out of her mouth, peeled off the two sensors and tossed all three in the gel. As she climbed out of the vat and walked past the four attendants, they began to mumble possible explanations: something in the system must have failed, the defender insertion points were wrong, someone felt sorry for her.
Emily now took labored steps toward the locker room. Sorry for me? Who? Stallings? No, he didn't want her to go. The other soldiers? They had put her on the first elevator. But how could they have influenced the outcome? They weren't defenders. Who else then?
Damon… Yes, it had to be Damon. Why did he back her request for command? He never would have done it for Matt. Or anyone else for that matter. Why now? Did he feel sorry for me?
She soon joined her squad at the elevator. Like the white-coats, their eyes radiated with awe and disbelief, but they didn't discuss the victory. The bell chime shook them from their thoughts, and they boarded the elevator. When Emily attempted to enter, her shirt tightened around her stomach. A swift tug jerked her back to the chamber.
Damon stood behind her. His cheeks flushed crimson and eyes glistened with tears. “Can we ride alone?” The words came out strained, almost a whisper.
Emily glanced at the shuttering doors. She could break the safety beam. Stop her squad from leaving. Just a quick ride to the top, and she might avoid the inevitable—another I'm sorry. She didn't want to hear it. Didn't want to listen to anyone finally concede the great things about Matt but only after he was gone. “Damon, I haven't slept—”
“Please?” Now he stared her in the eyes.
The delay made the choice for her; the elevator doors shut. She gave him a reluctant nod.
Damon said nothing until they stepped inside the next available elevator. By then, drops of sweat trickled down his forehead, which shined gray under the fluorescent lights. Something obviously pained him. Unlike her moment with Rizzo, she couldn't leave in the middle of this confessional. “Heath.” He cleared his throat. “Emily, I'm sorry. I know he and I didn't get along. Part of that is my fault. All of it actually. I acted stupidly toward him because I was so damn stubborn. He figured it out.” Damon glanced at the ceiling. “This place.”
“I know,” she said, her voice low.
“But you don't.” Damon threw out his hands. “Did you ever wonder why he tried so hard? Why you always ended up in his squad?”
“You know about that?”
“Of course I know. Everyone knows. We also know why he wanted to win. You were his only reason for trying.” Damon shook his head. “What's your excuse?”
Emily was silent as the thoughts burned at her mind. How could anyone here, especially Damon, ever understand Matt more than her? And why the stupid question? A question with an obvious answer. The answer to how Greaver motivated every soldier.
“Pain?” Damon asked, as if he read her mind. “I think you're beyond the physical suffering. No, you're doing this because you don't want to lose. You think winning makes you right. Do you believe this is what he would have wanted? If so, maybe you should forget about him.”
Emily clenched her fists. “Shut the hell up.”
“Emily, give up. Lose. You can't stop it.”
“The colonels in the courtyard…”
The elevator doors opened, and he stepped in the hall. “You're almost out of choices here. Stop being so stubborn. Do the right thing before it's too late.” He walked away.
“How is giving up the right thing?”
Without answering, Damon turned down the first corridor.
Emily ran after him, but when she entered his hallway, he was gone. She paused for a moment and looked in the other direction—nothing. “Damon?” She checked the nearest room. Empty too. By eight o'clock, she had worked her way through the hall, opening every door. Still no Damon. “What the hell?” A distant, scratchy sound of a baton rubbing fatigues finally persuaded her to abandon the search.
Emily didn't remember trying to sleep that night. She didn't fight it, either. Once she returned to her room, it seemed inevitable; two sleepless nights made her boots feel like lead weights, and her eyes burned under the slightest glow of light. The next nine hours disappeared from her mind.
A deafening crack of wood shook Emily's bed, and she shot up, instantly awake. Between the two beds, a pair of fatigue-wearing legs stared at her. She followed them up to the torso, the neck and finally the snarling face of the morning hall officer. The woman's upper lip curled over her yellow teeth. “What's your problem, Private?”
Emily glanced around the roo
m. Maggie wasn't anywhere in sight. The hallway also sounded lifeless, not bustling with the sound of a hundred scurrying girls. “Ma'am?”
The officer grabbed Emily's neck and forced her to look at the clock. It displayed 5:27.
Emily gasped. “Alarm—it never—I didn't hear it.”
The officer, still clutching Emily's neck, dragged her out of the bed and shoved her against the door. “Private, you're going to shower. You'll then run the full thirty. I'll let your instructor punish you for your lateness.” The officer traced the baton around Emily's lips. “But only this one time. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ma'am.” Emily threw off her clothes, raced down the hall and began the morning routine.
At 6:09, her legs still burning from the run, Emily arrived at the closed classroom door and peeked through the slit in the window. Inside, Stallings paced before the podium as he pointed at the projector display—his results spiel. Predictable enough. She needed to time her stealth entry just right, so when Stallings turned his back to the hallway, Emily gently pushed open the door.
The hinges still let out a short squeal.
Stallings whipped around. “Private Heath, nice of you to finally join us.”
Emily felt the eyes of everyone in the classroom watch her as she slinked to an open stool in the front row. “Sorry, sir.”
“I thought you and Private Winston might have abandoned us.”
Emily looked over her shoulder at the center spot where she normally sat. The three stools were empty. Damon, sitting a row farther back, smiled at her.
“I'm sure she'll grace us with her presence sooner or later.” Stallings stood in front of Emily and leaned across the desk, close to her face. Behind him, her name flashed on the projector screen in the number one position. “Private, do you want the good news or the bad news?”
His words crossed her mind as little more than an undecipherable mumble. She was thinking about Sarah. Was she sick? Fell during the run? Something worse? Please, don't let it be something worse.
Walking Ghost Phase Page 23