by Tarah Benner
“Well, that could have gone better,” I say to announce my presence. I close my eyes and squeeze the bridge of my nose to alleviate the headache I feel coming.
“You meet your fresh meat?”
Miles shoots again, and one of the other virtual players groans and dies on-screen. I look away, trying to hide how twitchy the sounds of his game make me. Most of us who spend our lives dodging death on the Fringe don’t need to rehash it in a game, but I guess it helps Miles downplay the real danger.
“Yeah, I met them. And let me tell you, it does not look good.”
“Ug-os or walking body bags?”
I cringe, but I’m not sure which bothers me more: him thinking of my recruits as pieces of ass or insinuating that they’re all going to be dead soon — which they will be.
“They’re just so . . . green. They’re either terrified or cocky.”
“Hey. You need some help scaring the little shits, you just let me know.”
I laugh when I think about Miles teaching my last class how to fight. He was really just a prop in there — I wouldn’t actually let him beat any of them up — but his tree trunk–sized arms and menacing glare were enough to make even the toughest recruits piss their pants.
But the thought of bringing Miles in to cut Harper Riley down to size doesn’t cheer me up.
“I don’t think they need to be scared straight,” I say, thinking about that defiant look in her eyes that reminded me so much of myself.
“Then what’s your plan? Positive reinforcement? Sharing time? Building up their self-esteem?”
I laugh even though I don’t want to. Miles is joking, but he’s right. Nothing I do can guarantee their safety. I feel restless and defeated.
I need to train, but Miles is in no shape to go another round. He needs to let his nose heal before he’s deployed again. I could ask Lopez, but he hates me, and I don’t like sparring with people who can’t keep their emotions in check. It’s a good way to get injured.
Miles can sense I’m itching for a fight. He’s got a sixth sense for stupidity. “Listen. I know you hate this, but you just have to do what you can. After they’re trained, they’re not your responsibility.”
Something stirs in the pit of my stomach, but I shove it down farther. I hate how well Miles knows me. That’s the risk you take when you come up in the Institute with someone. They know you better than you know yourself.
“Yeah, I know.”
He stops playing and rounds on me. “No, you don’t. You look like you’re about to have a meltdown.”
I shrug. “I’m fine.”
He gives me a look of disbelief. “You think the other lieutenants care? They don’t give two shits.”
“Well, I’m not like them,” I say through gritted teeth.
“I know you aren’t. That’s the problem. This is the third time I’ve had to watch you go through this, and it’s depressing as hell.”
“Sorry if my conscience depresses you,” I snarl.
“Screw your conscience. Just do your job. Jayden didn’t promote you to be a whiny little bitch about it. She hired you to do the best you can with what you’ve got.”
“What I’ve got is seven soft cadets and not enough time to keep them alive,” I say. “You think the other lieutenants are doing the best they can? Their cadets are lucky if they show up for training!”
Miles levels me with a sympathetic stare. “Yeah, yeah. I know. They’re a bunch of lazy assholes. But . . .”
“But what?”
He cracks his neck, and his eyes shift from side to side. Miles isn’t scared of anything, but for some reason, he’s treading lightly now. “Maybe they have the right idea.”
I open my mouth to rip him a new one, but Miles sees my rage coming and keeps going.
“All I’m sayin’ is you can’t let yourself get attached. Some of them aren’t going to make it, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Miles’s indifference bothers me, but he’s right.
I can’t afford to care about these cadets. It doesn’t help keep them safe. In fact, it’s more dangerous for them if I’m personally invested.
Friends make you do stupid things. Friends make you lose your edge.
five
Harper
I pack slowly as Sawyer paces back and forth in our compartment. I can feel the stress coming off her in waves, and it’s just piling onto the panic welling up inside me.
“How in the hell did you score a forty-six?” she asks.
“Obviously something’s wrong with the test,” Celdon snaps.
She shoots him a death glare. The idea that the test could have messed up is too much for her to handle. Sawyer’s faith in the system is absolute.
“Maybe your scores got switched with someone else’s,” she suggests.
Celdon lets out a derisive laugh. “Are you serious? You think a multimillion-credit program just accidentally swapped two people’s scores?”
“Unless you’re suggesting that she somehow lost her mind and screwed up half the test!”
Sawyer’s voice is getting higher and higher, and Celdon is exuding pure smugness to cover up his frustration.
Sometimes I forget that just because Sawyer and Celdon are my best friends doesn’t mean they’re each other’s best friends. Sawyer has always been disgusted by Celdon’s partying, and because she grew up in a tier-one section, Celdon has always thought Sawyer was a little bit snotty. They push each other’s buttons as if it’s their job, and right now, they’re little more than reluctant allies.
“Maybe I did,” I sigh. “People choke under pressure all the time.”
“But you don’t,” says Celdon firmly. He isn’t just reassuring me to be a good friend. His voice says he’s certain.
I wish I were.
Sawyer helps me load my clothes and computer onto a cart in silence while Celdon sits on my old bed, staring at the wall.
I know Sawyer feels guilty for being happy about her bid, but I don’t want her to. It only makes me feel worse. Sawyer deserves to be in Health and Rehab more than anyone. I just don’t know what I did to deserve Recon.
I ride the megalift down to my new compartment alone. They don’t say it, but I know neither one of them wants to be seen slumming in Recon territory. Plus, Sawyer probably has a penthouse compartment in the upper tunnels with her name on it.
It’s a torturously long descent to the lower tunnels all by myself. When the megalift stops at the ground level, I wheel the cart over to the emergency stairwell and peer down the treacherous dark corners. I didn’t think about the stairs when I packed up the cart.
Fighting the impulse to shove the whole thing off the landing, I unload my computer to carry it down to safety first.
“Hey! Let me help you!” says a voice over my shoulder.
I whip around and almost bang foreheads with the short redheaded recruit the lieutenant yelled at.
Up close, her huge green eyes and pale, milky skin have a startling effect. She could almost be beautiful, but there’s an impish quality to her features that’s a little off-putting.
“Uh . . . thanks,” I mutter.
I set my computer back down, and she grabs the front end of the cart. She’s much stronger than she looks.
Together, we manage to carry the cart down the stairs without incident, and I sigh with relief that my computer didn’t slip off and shatter into a million pieces.
Now that the shock of the bidding ceremony has worn off, I notice the damp smell that lingers in the Recon tunnels and the permanent-looking grime coating the cinderblock walls. It’s more echoey than in the upper tunnels, and I can hear voices and laughter drifting from the long row of compartments.
“I know . . . it’s super shitty,” says the redhead, following my gaze. “I’m Lenny Horwitz, by the way.”
She sticks out a tiny hand, and I take it. “Harper Riley.”
Lenny returns the squeeze with bone-crushing pressure, and I cringe in surprise.
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“I’m from EnComm,” she says, confirming my suspicions. The merchants and showbiz people in Entertainment and Commerce all share Lenny’s ballsiness.
“What about you?” she asks.
I know she’s just being polite, but it’s a loaded question for someone like me. I clear my throat. “I grew up in the Institute.”
“Oh,” she says. She’s all red again, and I swear I can feel the heat coming off her.
That’s a conversation stopper if I ever heard one. I know how people who grew up with actual parents view kids who grew up in the Institute.
I push the cart ahead of me, hoping we reach my assigned compartment soon so I can get rid of her. I don’t want her pity.
“This is you,” she says quickly, stopping behind me at a dented metal door. “Sorry. I’m nosy. I already scoped it out.” She wrinkles her nose. “It’s kind of a dump.”
I back up, dragging the cart with me. Sure enough, there’s a tiny piece of paper shoved in the door jamb with my name scrawled in sloppy cursive handwriting.
I punch in four zeros — the default code — and all the numbers on the battered keypad blink haphazardly. There’s a sickly beep, as though its batteries are about to die, and I hear the door unlock. I throw my shoulder into the door. It bounces open and ricochets off the adjacent wall, and a single strip of florescent lighting flickers on.
Lenny was right. This place is a dump.
As soon as I step inside, the smell of stale air hits my nostrils. The room looks like a steel box with a thin layer of stained carpet on the floor for warmth. It’s about the size of the dorm room I shared with Sawyer, but instead of an extra twin bunk mounted on the far wall, there’s a cramped living area with a saggy black couch and a table that folds out from the wall.
“They really go all out for new recruits, huh?”
“They call us cadets. But at least you have a window.”
She’s right. I jump up onto the lumpy mattress and draw up the shade. It’s not a window to the outside world — just a streaky glass partition overlooking the dark Underground platform.
“That’s handy,” I mutter.
Sitting on the shelf next to the bed is a small stack of gray fatigues: seven pairs of gray cargo trousers made out of some thin synthetic material, seven black tank tops, and seven lightweight gray overshirts. I touch the tiny cadet patch on the shoulder, and my eyes wander down to the outline of a hawk embroidered in dark gray thread over the heart.
“It’s weird, isn’t it?” Lenny murmurs. “That we’re actually here.”
I nod, feeling the tears burning in my throat. I swallow them down. I will not cry in front of this girl.
I don’t want to be here. I don’t want any part of it. I was supposed to be wearing white by now. I belong in Systems.
Lenny leaves to go try to bring some charm to her lunchbox of a compartment, and I lie down on my bare, smelly mattress, staring at the line of rust where the ceiling meets the walls.
In the upper tunnels, new tier-one recruits are busy socializing and meeting the recruits who just aged out of gap year. Sawyer is shy, but she’s probably already making friends with some nerdy new Health and Rehab girl, and I’d bet money that Celdon is getting burned in Neverland with the Systems kids.
Here, the shame and collective sense of failure outweigh our need to make friends. Somewhere down the tunnel, a new recruit is crying, and it echoes through the vents.
That’s a mistake. In tier three, they’ll eat you alive if you show weakness. I need to cry, too, but instead I smash the musty pillow over my head and sleep for the first time in two days.
six
Harper
Standing in line in the canteen the next morning, I can’t help but feel as though everyone is watching me. It isn’t true, but the gray fatigues feel heavy and foreign.
The canteen is already packed for breakfast, with a mess of different-colored uniforms crammed in at long rows of tables. The lighting is bright this time of day, meant to maintain our correct circadian rhythm despite being in the windowless interior of the compound.
Across the room, Sawyer is sitting with her recruit class. She’s wearing bright red scrubs and already looks as though she belongs.
The Operations man who was on the line yesterday is here today, too, but he looks right through me as he hands me a bowl of boiled sweet potatoes, beans, and green algae. No protein cube. No flavor. It’s worse than the food I got yesterday.
I watch the credits disappear from my account on the screen and scowl as the man serves the Systems recruit behind me one perfect white hardboiled egg with his sweet potatoes. I feel a surge of jealousy. That egg would cost a week’s worth of my Recon stipend.
I stand self-consciously at the end of the line, fighting the urge to grab Sawyer and drag her off to our usual table. Celdon didn’t merge with Systems during his gap year, but he’d had us to fall back on. Now our old table is filled with strange kids, and Celdon is eating his egg with the Systems recruits.
“Hey! Riley!”
I recognize that voice instantly, and hate spills into my gut like toxic sludge.
Looking around, I see Paxton Dellwood waving boisterously from a table full of Control recruits. He’s wearing his navy blue slacks and jacket like a second skin and swinging his new electric nightstick under the table. The sneer plastered across his face makes me sick to my stomach.
Of course Control bid on him. Paxton is the biggest asshole in our year. He’ll feel right at home with all the other sociopaths, which is probably why he isn’t taking a gap year.
I have no choice but to walk right past him on the way to my table, and I bite back the urge to hit him.
“Hey, Riley! Nice outfit.” He whips back his slick blond waves and lowers his voice so only I can hear. “I suppose a congratulations is in order.”
His sharp eyes rake up my body in an intrusive way.
“Congratulations, Paxton,” I mutter. “They finally gave you a stick to put up your ass.”
He smirks, flipping the nightstick in his hand. “I meant you, Riley. You broke all the records. I don’t think anyone’s ever scored a forty-six before . . . and I don’t think a Systems wannabe has ever fallen so far down the ladder.”
“Eat shit, Dellwood,” snaps a voice behind me.
I turn. Lenny is standing near my left shoulder, wearing her new fatigues. Her hair is pulled back in a tight French braid, and she’s managed to stuff the excess material of her too-long trousers into her combat boots. I don’t like our uniforms, but even I have to admit she looks tough.
“Hey, gimp. How’s it hanging?” Paxton turns to me and whispers, “She’s a cripple.”
Lenny’s face goes scarlet, and she turns to walk away. But just as Paxton’s mouth lifts into his trademark sneer, Lenny’s elbow shoots out to the side, striking him across the nose.
“Fucking hell!”
As I stare, a triumphant swell of respect for Lenny blossoms in my chest. Maybe I’m going to like Recon after all.
“I could arrest you for that!” Paxton gurgles. He moves his hand, and a dribble of blood escapes from between his fingers.
A few controllers look up from their meals to see what all the commotion is about, but they can’t be bothered to write Lenny a citation while they’re trying to eat their breakfast.
“Go ahead,” Lenny snarls. “Then you’d have to tell everyone you got beat up by a girl who’s a gimp.” She sticks her middle finger in his face and cocks her head for me to follow her.
As we walk between the tables, I watch her neck burn scarlet. I know she’s thinking about me watching her walk. She does favor her left leg, but it’s barely noticeable if you aren’t looking for it.
Paxton being recruited by Control fills me with a sense of dread. He already walks around as though he owns the place. He’s Third Gen, and as he likes to remind everyone, his grandparents were among the first wave of humans who settled in the compound. If you ask me, they had to be the creepy
cultish type to shut themselves up in this place at the first whisper of nuclear warfare. Most people didn’t come to the compound until after the first wave of attacks.
Lenny slams her tray down at a Recon table and swings her legs over the bench. “I hate that guy.”
“You shouldn’t have done that,” I say, though I’m glad she did. “You can get away with mouthing off to Paxton, but humiliating him is going to cost you.”
Lenny shrugs and starts shoveling sweet potatoes into her mouth. “Like I give a shit. What’s gonna happen to me? It’s not as if they can put me in Recon again.”
I laugh without meaning to because she’s right. We really don’t have anything to lose.
While Lenny’s busy shoveling food into her mouth, I look up and down the table at the other people in gray. Most of them have the hardened look of people who’ve been at war. Their skin is darker than everyone else’s — tan and leathery from time spent in the sun — and there’s a strange, permanent grunge to it, as though the dirt and polluted air from the Fringe have stained the palms of their hands and the beds of their fingernails.
“You should put your hair up,” Lenny muses. “That’s how they all wear it.”
I glance down at a cluster of female cadets and see that she’s right. Then my gaze lands on Bear. He’s already demolished his bowl of food, but his eyes are still hungry. Packing over two hundred and fifty pounds of muscle and blubber, I don’t know how he plans to survive on the Recon meal plan.
A few of the other recruits sitting nearby get up to leave, so Lenny and I dump our trays and follow them out of the canteen.
We take the stairs back down to the lower level, and my dread compounds with every step. We wind our way through the dimly lit tunnels to the training center, where several groups of older Recon are already working out. I see three clusters of nervous-looking cadets across the room, but their commanding officers haven’t arrived yet.
