by Tarah Benner
Time slows down as I hit the mat, and he comes down swinging.
I manage to block the worst of his hits, but I can’t get enough leverage to buck him off. Lopez knows this. He’s built like a tank.
This time, I feel every one of his hits to the bone. I don’t even try to block the pain. It’s strong enough to make me forget. It feels like penance.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I know I need to end this fight. He’s landing too many punches.
But then the pain dissipates. All I feel is the blood rushing to the surface. Lopez isn’t hitting me anymore.
“What the hell?” somebody yells.
I open my eyes and peer through the cage I’ve made around my face with my arms. Miles is towering over me, holding Lopez in a headlock. The noise from the crowd rushes back to me. They’re angry he stopped the fight, but one of his menacing looks is enough to make them back off.
“It was just a friendly match,” I mumble, feeling like an idiot. I’m sure whatever Miles saw looked anything but friendly.
“Are you out of your mind?”
“It’s fine.” Miles rolls his eyes and lets Lopez go.
Lopez staggers away, clutching his abdomen, and throws me a look that says this isn’t over. He’ll probably ambush me in a dark tunnel one day, but even he won’t try to take on Miles.
I pull myself into an upright position, ignoring Miles’s concerned gaze. The crowd is still a little agitated, but they’re not about to start anything with both of us in the ring. He jerks his head toward the tunnel, and shame spills into my gut.
I slide between the ropes and follow him out, trying not to look as though I just got my ass handed to me. It’s not the beating that’s embarrassing — it’s the loss of self-control. It’s bad enough that Lopez’s crew got to witness it; they don’t know just how fucked in the head I am.
As soon as we’re out of earshot in the dark tunnel, Miles rounds on me. He’s trying out a look of uncharacteristic disapproval, and I know he’s gearing up for a lecture.
“Man, what were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t,” I pant, wiping the blood from my upper lip.
“I know. But Lopez? I thought you were smarter than that.”
I shrug, but Miles isn’t about to let this go.
“You have got to stop doing this,” he says in his best tough-love voice.
“Doing what?”
“This self-destructive bullshit you put yourself through every time you get a new recruit class. A fight here and there for kicks is one thing, but Lopez will lay your ass out. If Jayden thinks she might lose her best lieutenant to an illegal fight because he’s depressed —”
“I’m not depressed,” I snap, shoving past him.
“— she’ll find someone else to beat up on your cadets.”
I freeze. “You heard about that?”
“I heard you went easy on her. Too easy.”
I wheel around and glare at him. “You weren’t there.”
“You know you didn’t do that girl any favors by holding back, right?”
“It was day one,” I snarl.
Miles is right up in my face, his mouth twisted into a scowl. “That hasn’t stopped you before. What is it with this girl?”
“Nothing.”
“It’s not nothing. What the hell is going on with you?” he yells. The darkness is throwing shadows on his already severe face, and the close proximity to such rage would be enough to make anybody else lose their shit.
I step back and square my shoulders, and his face falls out of its hardened expression. I know that feeling. Sometimes the aggression is so automatic that you have to remind yourself who you’re talking to.
The worst thing is that he’s right. I’ve changed a lot since the Institute. Hell, I’ve changed a lot since our cadet year. Back then, I was a mean little shit, but Miles and I could always find something to laugh about. These days, it’s a struggle just to get out of bed, and he can tell.
“Listen,” says Miles, regaining his composure. “Jayden’s on the warpath. She thinks you’re going soft. What’s your problem?”
“I scared her, Miles. I really scared her.”
“That’s your job.”
“She’ll never come back now.”
“The hell she won’t. What’s she gonna do? She has nowhere else to go.”
“She could still leave the compound.”
Miles sighs. “You know she won’t.”
“She might. She has no family here.”
“Is that what this is about?” he asks incredulously. “She reminds you of you? Jesus.” Miles rolls his eyes. “Every Institute brat isn’t yours to save.”
“It’s not that.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Trust me, she’ll get over it and be mouthing off to you by Friday.”
I take a deep breath and look around to make sure there’s no one who could possibly overhear. “What am I going to do with them?”
“Your little grasshoppers?”
I nod. “They aren’t going to make it, Miles. Jayden’s just going to draft again.”
He lets out an uncomfortable chortle. “She keeps that up and ExCon won’t have anyone left.”
“Yeah, well, after a few deployments, neither will we.”
eight
Harper
It’s nearly midnight when I hear a heavy knock on the metal door of my compartment. It’s probably a controller coming to arrest me for striking my commanding officer.
But when I peer through the peephole, I’m shocked to see a familiar face plastered with a shit-eating grin. He tousles his blond hair in a half-flirty¸ half-oblivious way, and I groan. If Celdon is here, he’s probably coming from Neverland, burned out of his mind.
I open the door and he bounds in, looking amused by the relative shabbiness of my living arrangements. His eyes dart from the dented metal walls to the suspicious stain on the carpet.
He snaps the door closed. “Nice digs, Riles.”
I open my mouth to let out some snarky reply, but when I turn my head, his jaw hits the floor.
“What the hell happened to you?” he splutters.
“My commanding officer wanted to make an example of me.”
“Holy shit.”
Celdon reaches out and lifts my chin so he can see the bruise forming along my neck where Eli choked me.
“Who . . .?”
“Eli Parker.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “I remember that guy. He was three years above us in the Institute. I can’t believe he did this!”
“Believe it. This is Recon. They take shit seriously.”
Celdon levels me with his gaze. “What did you do to piss him off?”
I shake my head. Truthfully, I’m not sure what I did to make Eli single me out like that, apart from exuding clear disdain for Recon.
But thinking back to what happened when the commander entered the training center, I realize he probably had to choose someone to bully.
“I hit him.”
“What?”
“I punched him in the face,” I say, still a little shocked myself.
“You can’t punch your direct command,” Celdon says incredulously. “Especially Eli Parker. He’s a poster boy for Recon and their best fighter. You know that, right?”
I nod, and Celdon chuckles.
“Jesus. You really aren’t going to survive here.”
I shove his shoulder lightly, which sends a shooting pain up my wrist. I’d forgotten how hard I hit Eli.
I stare into Celdon’s eyes. They’re clear and bright. He’s sober, which fills me with a sense of relief. As useless as it is to cling to old friends now that we’re all in different sections, I’m so freaking glad to see him.
“Why are you here?” I ask quietly. “You can’t keep blowing off Systems.”
He holds up a hand, and I’m surprised to see a wry smile playing on his lips. “Save the lecture, Riles. Sawyer already beat you to it.”
He glances
at the closed door and pulls me closer to the window, as though he doesn’t want to take the chance of being overheard by someone passing in the tunnel.
He takes a deep breath, and I’m startled by the serious look on his face. “I have to show you something.”
I hesitate, but Celdon isn’t going to take no for an answer. Before I can even ask where we’re going, he’s dragging me out of my compartment, down the tunnel, up the stairs, and onto the megalift.
I’ve never seen him so anxious before, and I know whatever he found has to be big.
We’re alone in the lift, but I can’t shake the feeling that we’re being watched.
“Does this have anything to do with my VocAps score?” I ask in a low voice.
He nods.
I don’t dare say anything more as we shoot up through the center of the compound to the upper tunnels. It’s ridiculous, but even talking about it makes me feel as though I’m doing something illegal.
The megalift dings, and I follow Celdon out into the main tunnel in the uppermost level that leads to Systems headquarters. It’s completely deserted, and our footsteps echo off the white tile floor as we pass a row of offices and restricted access rooms.
There are no adornments along the walls, but every Systems tunnel is gorgeous in its starkness. It’s like being in an art gallery with no art.
As we walk, I can’t help staring up at the geometric skylights placed between the cross braces in the ceiling. The velvety black sky is dotted with stars. It’s so beautiful after spending such a long time underground that I can almost forget how dangerous the Fringe is.
Finally, we reach the end of the tunnel, where a heavy steel door stands between us and Systems headquarters.
Celdon produces his access card, and I swallow down my envy as he swipes his way in and leads me inside the room.
The door slams shut, and for a moment, it’s pitch black except for the stars twinkling through the skylights. Celdon moves, and the motion-activated lights flicker on at all the workstations.
I’ve never been inside Systems, and I’m immediately shocked by its sheer size. Dozens of rounded workstations hemmed in by frosted glass are nestled in a honeycomb configuration around an enormous bank of servers.
There’s a hiss behind me, and a stream of cold air shoots through the vent on the adjacent wall. I can only imagine how hard the air conditioning has to work to keep this room at a crisp sixty-eight degrees.
Celdon strides purposefully toward the row closest to the servers and disappears into one of the half-moon cubicles. I follow him in and touch the desk reverently as he punches in a user name and password.
It’s cramped inside, but the gentle hum of the computer in the small space makes me feel right at home. I try not to stare too hungrily at the razor-thin twenty-seven-inch monitor or the ultra-compact CPU.
“Who’s Jacob Morsey?” I ask, reading over his shoulder.
“A moronic new recruit,” says Celdon, cracking a grin. “I helped him set up his account today.”
“This isn’t your computer?”
“I’m not an idiot. Do you think I want someone to see that I logged in at midnight and accessed files I have no business snooping in?”
He laughs as though I’m the crazy one and pulls up a folder labeled “Vocational Aptitude Results.”
I feel guilty and want to punch Jacob Morsey in the face all at the same time. This could have been my desk.
The folder is password protected, but Celdon’s fingers fly across the keyboard and produce nine identical black dots in the field.
“Sullivan Taylor oversees the VocAps test and allocates each section’s recruitment budget. He sends the test results to Systems every year so our computers can perform the algorithm that ranks each recruit’s aptitude for every section. Then the board sends a list of the best matches to each section’s leaders.”
Celdon breezes through the files and pulls up a spreadsheet. Before I have a chance to see the data, he swivels around and looks up at me with an uncharacteristically serious expression.
“I debated whether or not I should show you this.” He swallows and looks away. “It isn’t good. If you’d rather not know, we can turn around and never talk about it again.”
The look on his face is making my breath get stuck in my chest. You’d think someone died.
“I need to know.”
He nods. “I figured.”
Turning back toward the computer, he swivels the monitor so it’s right in front of me. Down the left-hand column is an alphabetical list of recruits, and across the top is a row of more than a hundred categories.
Celdon scrolls down to the Rs and finds my name.
“These are the results for every category of your VocAps test,” he says, dragging his finger down the row.
My eyes flicker down the numbers for “Operating Systems,” “Computer Architecture,” “Programming,” “Software Design,” “Discreet Structures,” and “Mathematics.” All my scores are high — even higher than I scored on my practice exams.
“Look,” says Celdon. “You scored a ninety-eight overall. That’s the highest I’ve ever seen.”
“What did you score?”
He shrugs, trying to look indifferent. “Ninety-five.”
A slow grin spreads across my face, and Celdon concedes with a chuckle. “Shut up.”
I elbow him in the ribs, and my eyes shift to the other cells to the right of my VocAps score. “So what are these numbers?”
“These categories factor in your health history, your immune system, and your genetic predisposition to about a hundred different diseases.”
“What?”
My heart is racing. I remember taking the physical exam, of course, but that was just standard procedure to make sure I was fit for duty.
“It took me a while to work out their formula, but they score you based on how likely they think you are to kick the bucket — your risk for everything from heart disease to cancer to Alzheimer’s,” says Celdon.
“They can’t know that . . .”
“They can. Genome mapping. It’s very speculative, but they view it as your odds. They’re betting on the people with the best chance of survival.” He stops, running a hand through his crazy locks. “They call it your viability score.”
“What was my score?” I ask, not sure I even want to know.
Celdon grimaces, and for a moment, I wonder if he’s even going to tell me. “Thirty-three.”
“Thirty-three what?”
His eyes crinkle in pain. “Thirty-three percent chance of living to the age of thirty.”
It feels as though the floor has dropped out from under me. The cubicle is suddenly too small, and my entire body goes numb with shock.
“What am I going to die from?”
Celdon lets out a humorless laugh. His face is deadly serious and full of regret. “I don’t know, Riles. But by the looks of it . . . I’d say some type of cancer.”
I feel the tears burning in my throat. Celdon can see I’m on the verge of breaking down, so he presses on. “It’s not a sure thing. Your genes don’t seal your fate. There are environmental factors and your behavior . . . but this is what dragged down your score.”
“But if my aptitude score —”
“It’s weighted, Riles. Aptitude is only about twenty percent of your total score.”
“What’s the other eighty percent?”
“How likely you are to survive and pass on your wonderful — or not-so-wonderful — genetic traits.”
“Eighty percent? That’s ridiculous. People’s scores would be so low!”
He shakes his head slowly. “Your risk factors are way outside the normal range. You have a pretty nasty health history score because of the radiation from the Fringe.”
“How did you score?” I ask, my voice hoarse and scratchy. “You’re First Gen, too.”
He shrugs. “An unbelievable eighty percent, though they did deduct points for my ‘risky lifestyle.’” He
puts an admirable amount of contempt on the last two words, and I feel a little sick.
“This is so wrong. If people knew —”
“But people don’t know. And you can’t tell anyone.”
I stare at him in disbelief. Celdon — the burnout who refused to be grateful that the most prestigious section bid on him — is scared. Though whether he’s scared of Systems or the board, I can’t quite tell.
I feel numb all over, but something is still nagging at me. “It still doesn’t explain why Recon bid so high on me.”
“I know. I’m working on that part. But guess who was ranked at the top of Recon’s recruitment list.”
“Me?” I shake my head. “But why?”
“Probably because you’re too smart to be in ExCon and you’re going to die young anyway.”
I roll my eyes. “Thanks.”
“They also increased recruitment to Recon,” he says quietly. “Do you have any idea why?”
I shake my head. Frankly, that feels like the least of my problems.
Feeling nosy, I scroll up to Sawyer’s scores. She scored high in aptitude and viability, which makes sense. She’s Second Gen. Her parents both work in Health and Rehab.
“They can’t do this,” I say.
“But they have.”
“What about you? How are you okay with this?”
Celdon’s eyes harden. “I’m not, but there’s nothing I can do.”
He logs out of Jacob Morsey’s account and turns off the monitor. I listen to the gentle hum of the system shutting down and the hiss of the air conditioner.
All I wanted was to earn a spot in this room. Now I’m here, yet I couldn’t be farther away.
“Why did you show me this?” I ask finally.
Celdon looks surprised. “You’re my best friend, Riles. I figure you deserved to know — even if there’s nothing you can do about it.”
In that moment, I have the strange urge to hug Celdon. He may be a pain in the ass sometimes, but he’s always looked out for me. He’s the closest thing I have to family.
My parents brought me here before our region was hit during Death Storm, but they died a few weeks later. Celdon was found alone near the compound by a Recon worker when he was just a toddler. Nobody knows what happened to his parents.
