“And when you say take me out . . .”
“I mean take you out,” said the Black. “They’re going to kill you.”
I kept smiling.
“I’m serious.”
“But I think—”
The warmth disappeared entirely. “Don’t think. Forget. Forget everything you think you know, because it’s different here. The instructors, the cadets—they’re not on your side. They’re not going to help you.”
“But you’re helping,” Sebastian said hesitantly.
“Yes,” said the Blue, who seemed calmer and more deliberate. He handed Sebastian a folded piece of electronic paper. He was foreign, with walnut skin and crescent eyes, but since his speech was accent-less and there weren’t that many ethnicities on Mars, I couldn’t quite place his exact origins. “Like he said, you’ll come with us to C3. We’ll get the lock off Cadet Sheridan as soon as we can, but for now, he’s in C2.”
“What’s C2?” asked Sebastian.
“Taryn’s barracks,” the Black replied. Given his tired certainty, I got the feeling he’d given this kind of talk before.
“But why are they doing this? Aaron was just—” Sebastian began.
“It’s what they do: draw out anyone who might give them trouble before they make friends who’d back them up. They want the Aarons identified immediately.”
“So bullying Sebastian was bait?” I asked.
“Yeah. Usually no one takes it, though. Not the first day. No one knows the rules at that point, and they’re too scared to do anything anyway,” said the one in blue. “And on the rare occasion someone does, they get rid of him.”
“What about you? Don’t you give them trouble?” I asked.
They exchanged glances before the Blue responded, “Not as much as we’d like.”
When he turned back, the student lieutenant’s eye seemed to catch something behind me, and I twisted around to see Caelus sitting down with two instructors in red a few tables over.
“Does he usually eat with the instructors?”
“Sometimes,” said the lieutenant. He was tall and athletic—full of bravado—but now that that guy Caelus was there, he seemed to shrink a little, his jaw clenching as he scanned the room. “We should go.”
The Blue was less concerned. “He has to have seen the transfer slip by now. He already knows what we’re doing.”
“Pierre, we need to go.”
The Blue named Pierre gave me a long look before he spoke. “You’re on your own tonight. When the lights go out, you don’t want to be in your bed.”
Chapter 9
I lay on my bunk, staring at the patterns in the bed frame above, thinking about the Verex who’d attacked the outpost this morning. Their outlines twisted in the woodwork, their teeth in every splinter; in the mattress poking me each time my weight shifted, and in the shadows when the bathroom door swung open. They were the kind of monster you checked the closets for. The reason you looked under your bed. Except they were real.
Verna had talked a lot about how the Fleet was recruiting more aggressively to deal with the Verex since most of the fighting on the Rim had gone underground, where personnel-light mobile and aerial units couldn’t reach. Horror stories about face-to-face encounters were starting to get around, but the extra hazard pay was appealing enough that the Fleet was still reaching its recruitment quota. If you didn’t make it out yourself, at least your family would be well taken care of.
And there were plenty who needed it. Since conscription was politically untenable, the Confederation had cut employment-creation programs and raised payroll taxes in an obvious attempt to encourage enrollment. It was the exact kind of slick, dirty move that made me hate politics, even more so because no one had seemed to be the wiser. Professor Dalton had said that my distaste was the reason I should stay interested, and I understood what he meant, but I’d wondered how useful I could be doing something I despised.
Blues plodded past me on their way to the showers, conversing among themselves. Rather than just being indifferent, it seemed like they were going out of their way to ignore me, averting their eyes and taking a longer route around my bunk. Given that they might have been doing so because they knew what was about to happen and wanted to distance themselves from it, I probably should’ve been more scared, but I wasn’t. I was just numb.
At least I was when I first crawled into bed. As the minutes ticked by and images of the Verex crept around my daydreams, though, a chill worked its way inside me at the thought of not seeing that girl from the catwalks again. Or Verna. And then I wondered what my parents would’ve thought about my bolting to escape their memory because I couldn’t handle seeing the lake, and the beach, and the house without them in it. Dad had been strong, Mom even stronger, and Celsia had been the most earnest little sister one could ever hope to have.
I thought the numbness had made me strong, too, but leaving was the weakest thing I could’ve done.
I’m so sorry, guys. I’m so fucking sorry.
I felt eyes settle on me as I started to cry, but I didn’t care. Pierre’s words echoed in my mind: You won’t want to be in your bed. I craned my neck to peer down at the rows of bunk beds and the small doorway at the far end. If I got my stuff and walked out, wouldn’t they just follow me? And if they didn’t get me tonight, it would be tomorrow—and if not tomorrow, then the next day.
I smeared away the tears and gazed across the room at the other Blues as they played cards, laughing and roughhousing. They really didn’t look that bad . . . except for Taryn, who was on the opposite side of the barrack, sitting on a crate under a lamp, dealing a hand of poker. Sunglasses masked his expression as he waited for everyone to check their cards, only then glancing down at his own. He was the reason, I figured: the kind of chemical that made other ones react.
I thought about Mom, Dad, and Celsia again, chatting with me at the dinner table. I thought about the water washing over the red rocks behind our house—and how I’d time myself fighting the current between them before having to turn on the boost pack. I thought about Verna letting those kids in front of the library have it when she caught them throwing rocks at birds, and I knew it was wrong to have left. Worse still was what I had planned to do to myself. That would have broken their hearts. And letting someone like Taryn get me without a fight would’ve been the biggest insult of them all.
After the lights went out I waited until the tossing and turning stopped and the breathing all around me was rhythmic before creeping out of bed and lying down on the floor. For a second I stared at the ceiling. There were no windows for the stars to shine through, but I knew they were there, and that was enough. Without a sound, I slid underneath the bunk bed. The metal was freezing, but it didn’t matter; I was going to stay there for as long as it took.
After a while, whispers cut into the silence, sawing in and out before forming a hushed wisp of a sentence.
“Which one is it?”
“B Twelve, on the right.”
“Do you have the . . . ?”
“We don’t need it. Just get behind the bed,” one of them said softly. “I’ll hold his arms down.”
I heard three of them sneaking up, spacing out to form a triangle around my bunk. It was too dark to aim—I just needed to hit hard enough. I rolled onto my side, propped myself against my elbow, and then slowly and stealthily flexed my leg into a kicking position.
“It’s just his bag. He’s not—”
The words turned into a gasp as my foot smashed into the top of the speaker’s kneecap. In a second he was on the floor and I kicked out again into where I thought his face was. I heard another pair of feet backing away from the edge of the bed and rolled in that direction, catching the side of an ankle with a sweeping leg and sending the second cadet sprawling into the darkness. I scrambled out from under the bed after him, first feeling a shoe, a leg, then a stomach, and finally a head.
He thrashed and kneed me in the thigh, but not before my knuckles cut into him—once, twice, three
times. I was going for four when there was a sharp tug on my neck and I wheeled backward like a crab, trying to keep up as I was dragged by a cord around my throat. I slipped my fingers under it to make space with one hand and I clawed out with increasing desperation with the other, hoping to get my attacker to loosen his grip, but the person was doing too good a job staying out of range.
We turned and crashed onto someone’s bed, the occupant diving out the other way. For a moment my attacker was pinned underneath me and I had a reprieve long enough to draw in a gulp of air, though a second later he managed to turn my shoulder and I was on my side again, the cord tighter than ever. I thrashed and thrashed, but was feeling woozier and woozier, my head getting lighter and farther away. I knew I was losing consciousness. Just before I melted into the dark, though, I felt hot breath on the back of my neck and somehow had the presence of mind to realize he’d drifted too close. I bucked backward with every bit of remaining strength and my skull cracked against his jaw, the cord releasing from my neck. I spun around and shoved him off the bed and then, still disoriented and too wary of the others to follow it up, twisted off the opposite side and crawled away.
“What the fuck’s going on?”
“Who’s there?”
I scurried past cadets beginning to wake up in the dark, startled and sitting up in their bunks. The floor was icy and hard, but I felt nothing, bounding across on all fours, my head still dizzy from lack of oxygen. I crashed against a vertical beam as I lurched across the walkway, but the pain didn’t register. Just get out of here, just get out of here. It was all I could think.
The first lights flicked on just as I zipped into the corridor and, after slipping, I broke into an awkward jog. The shouts that had been echoing around the barracks became a chorus of disorder rising above the hum of the station’s life support system.
“Where is he? Where the fuck did he go?” I heard someone yell.
“He just ran out the door, heading toward the Science Wing.”
“That bitch busted my fucking nose!”
I suddenly wished I’d paid better attention instead of mindlessly following my U-dev from the Great Room to the barracks, where it remained in my bag, left behind with my other scarce possessions. I was lost, rounding corners and dashing down passageways, vaulting toward an unknown destination away from the shouting.
They’d warned me, but I’d made no provision for escape.
Eventually, I found myself in a corridor that was better lit. I tried every door handle. Most were locked, but finally one gave way and I stumbled through and latched it behind me, sliding down against the slippery metal. The floor was like snow against my bare feet. The room was dark, save for the faintest glow cast by the planet—visible from the far window—and it took a few moments for my eyes to adjust. Shapes loomed from tabletops and walls, pitching strange shadows in every direction. They were dark and menacing, but hopefully they could hide me from my pursuers.
I ran my fingers across a countertop and then slid them lower until they brushed up against something cool. I squatted down to look closer and saw the smooth, thin curves of a handle to a large cupboard running underneath the counter. After a few moments, I crawled inside. It took some time for the darkness and the stillness to set in before I heard things creak and drip, but I couldn’t tell—and didn’t care—what they were. Whatever was inside the room with me couldn’t be worse than what was outside.
Chapter 10
I woke up a few hours later, shouting. I’d been dreaming of the transport ship and the hypersleep chamber, only this time the cell had been shrinking, the air getting thinner and thinner, and no one had come to get me out. Everyone else’s had opened and they’d walked into the corridor, talking among themselves, oblivious to my banging fists and screams.
As I gained consciousness, the chamber transformed into wood, and as I continued struggling, it splintered and I fell crashing out of a cupboard, along with an assortment of vials and beakers.
I had completely forgotten where I was, recalling only vaguely some sort of pursuit, and had risen halfway to my feet before I saw the desks and the stunned faces of students staring at me from behind them. No one seemed frightened or amused, only surprised.
Then it all came rushing back. The warning. The fight. The chase. The realization catapulted me back into the moment, and not knowing who was friend or enemy I just wanted to get out of there. The shadows of the prior night dissolved under the ceiling lights, revealing microscopes and sequencers and other lab equipment as I backpedaled, stumbling over some of the items that had spilled out of the cupboard with me on my to the door. “Sorry,” I gasped inaudibly.
There was a breeze in the corridor I hadn’t noticed yesterday, but it was unmistakable in a tank top and shorts. I didn’t know where to go. The one place I could think of was the C3 barracks because Sebastian was there, but I needed directions and stopped a Blue who was about to pass me in the hallway.
“Check your U-dev,” he said, annoyed. He began to walk away but I stopped him again.
“I lost it. Could you just show me on yours?”
“How do you lose a U-dev? They all have tracking beacons, just go to—”
“Please? Could you just please help me out?”
He frowned again, then, after a brief sigh, conjured up a map on his screen. “You see we’re here in the Science Wing in the Outer Ring,” he said, pointing to a blinking blue dot. “You want to go this way, down through the Great Room, into C Block, and then over through this big corridor here.” With another finger stroke, the U-dev beeped and began printing out a palm-sized sheet of electronic paper with its own blinking blue dot.
C3 was only about a third the size of C2 with just as many people, but tidy, and only marginally more sweat-scented. Interweaving hammocks and bunk beds filled the room, many cut unevenly so they’d fit against the odd-angled corners, with cubbies for gear and wardrobes occupying the remaining space. Judging from the cable shafts and pipes bulging from the floors and walls, C3 looked like it had originally been a storage locker or a climate-control substation—a space utilized out of necessity. Several Blues, Fin among them, were hovering around some coffee brewing in one corner while Pierre and the lieutenant sat on a table positioned on top of a bundle of piping.
“You didn’t listen, did you?” said Pierre, looking me over as I approached.
“I guess not.”
Others glanced up from their U-devs and electronic papers. A kid who’d been playing a small, stringed instrument in the corner stopped and set it against the wall.
“Was it because you didn’t believe me or because you didn’t want to?” asked Pierre.
I almost said, “Because I didn’t care,” but shrugged instead.
“There’s a saying around here that goes: ‘In the Outer Ring, watch your step. In the hall, watch your back. On C Block, watch everything,’” said the lieutenant in black, as he stood up and strolled over to me. You could tell by the way he paused ever so slightly for effect between phrases that he was getting off a little on this mentor-showing-the-noob-the-ropes thing. “Though you don’t strike me as the kind of person who watches everything, not because you’re careless, but because you don’t think you should have to. I’m telling you right now, brother, you better recalibrate that assumption.”
I shook my head. “I still don’t understand what’s going on.”
“Of course you don’t,” said the lieutenant.
“Is this all just because of what I did yesterday? I didn’t even . . . I just stood up for Sebastian—”
“That’s all it takes. Especially since they know the Reds won’t stop them unless it’s overly blatant,” said the lieutenant matter-of-factly. Even in his lecture voice, you could tell he was trying to be sympathetic, making eye contact and injecting a certain gravity into his speech. But the problem was that it was all undercut by the resting near-smile he had on his face, which made everything he said sound simultaneously detached and flippant.
“Like I said, you’re going to need to recalibrate your assumptions.”
“Why do you care about me anyway? It’s not like my Box scores are anything special. If you want those, just keep Sebastian.”
“’Cause you’re a spark,” said Pierre, stepping closer, looking me right in the eyes. “Right now Caelus has all the good techs. All of them. Do you know why?”
I made the obvious guess. “’Cause they’re scared?”
“Terrified,” said Pierre without a hint of playfulness. “But you just made them feel safer. You just made them feel like there was another option, something Caelus has been doing everything he could to prevent. In fact he made sure Brandon here got elected as second unit commander precisely because he believes he can control him.”
Pierre broke into a half smile and gave the lieutenant a friendly pat on the shoulder from across the small table. “Fortunately, Brando isn’t the lamb he trots around as.”
“Baaaahhhhh,” said Brandon, triggering subdued laughter from everyone.
“The setup’s taken time, because we’ve had to build support without attracting attention,” continued Pierre, “but with the uproar you’ve caused we’ve been forced into a choice: throw you to the wolves or take you in and make our move.”
Now I laughed. “Looks like you’ve already made your decision.”
“We had to test you—we had to know you were worth it.”
Again, Pierre looked me square in the eyes. His were calm and brown and alive in a manner that would’ve made me understand his sincerity even if he were silent. I hadn’t been able to place his ethnicity yesterday but now, in the quieter setting and seeing him for the second time, I imagined he was probably New Polynesian.
“And when you walked through the doors just now, well, once is a fluke, twice is . . .”
I knew what Verna would want me to say. What Mom, Dad, and Celsia would want. That just because I’d failed them once, it didn’t mean I had to keep failing them. “Twice is a pattern.”
Lakes of Mars Page 6
