Insignia

by S. J. Kincaid

  He must’ve terminated the virus, too, because Tom’s head cleared. He found himself staring at the decidedly unmenacing podium, his heart pounding, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He spun around and saw Blackburn warning Karl, “Control that temper, Marsters.”

  Karl’s face was bright red, his massive fists clenched at his sides. “But, sir, he—”

  “Is half your size and under the influence of malware, and he still got the slip on you. Twice. That’s your problem, not his. It’s time you sat down.”

  Karl threw Tom a look of death and stalked from the stage.

  Blackburn turned and surveyed Tom, where he was trying to regain his bearings. “Holding up there, Raines?”

  Tom glanced at the audience, where some trainees were trying to smother their laughter. His cheeks burned. He deliberately stepped closer to the stupid podium, just to show that he really wasn’t afraid of it—but not too close, because he wasn’t in love with it, either. “I’m great, sir.” He wasn’t going to plead for this to stop, if that’s what Blackburn was hoping for.

  “Thatta boy.” Blackburn turned back to the class and typed again. “One last virus, then. This targets the cerebral cortex: higher cognition and sense of self.” The program hit. Datastream received: program Agitated Canine initiated.

  Tom spent the last five minutes of class convinced he was a dog. He barked and crawled across the stage. In front of everyone. With 137 trainees laughing at him. The firm belief he was a dog stayed with him even after class ended, when a couple of the older trainees were determining what to do with him.

  “Blackburn said it’d only be a few minutes more. I’ve got time to wait it out. Try scratching behind his ears. My dog Buckley always liked that,” Elliot Ramirez was saying.

  Tom realized himself suddenly: he was sitting on the ground between Elliot and Heather, and Elliot was patting his head. He leaped to his feet, his cheeks burning.

  “Two legs again?” Elliot observed. “Feeling better—or is this your way of asking for a treat?” He chuckled at his own joke.

  Tom flushed. He was aware of Heather giggling, and felt distinctly unmanly. To his mortification, she rose to her feet, reached out, and rubbed his shoulder. “Aw, that’s a good boy.”

  “Thanks,” Tom said drily. “Thanks a lot, Heather.”

  “Don’t be embarrassed, Tom,” Heather said sweetly, while Elliot just kept chuckling good-naturedly behind her. “You really did make an adorable puppy.” She leaned a little closer. “And you should probably stay clear of Karl for a few days if you can help it.”

  Tom’s cheeks still burned as he stalked down the aisle, and just as he reached the door, he met Blackburn coming back into the room.

  The lieutenant slowed, his gaze sweeping over him. “Still holding up?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be? Sir?” Tom said shortly.

  “A fine show of bravado.” Blackburn considered him thoughtfully. “You know, Raines, if a rogue hacker gets away with minor security breaches on my watch, it calls into question whether they can get away with major security breaches, too. Likewise, if a plebe gets away with hiding that hacker’s identity from me, it encourages him to continue defying my authority in the future.”

  “You’ve made your point.”

  “I hope so. Well, Raines, misguided as it was, I still respect your commitment to protecting a fellow trainee. That took stones. Now shoo, get out of my sight.”

  sts

  TOM WAS ALMOST mollified by Blackburn’s parting words. At least, he was until he stepped into the mess hall and laughter greeted him. That’s when he began cursing Blackburn with all his heart. Then Karl offered him a slice of bacon. “Here, Lassie,” with a menacing gleam in his eyes like he was just hungry for an excuse to pummel him.

  Now that Tom really had a chance to look at him, Karl’s profile flashed before his eyes:

  NAME: Karl Marsters

  CALL SIGN: Vanquisher

  RANK: USIF, Grade VI, Camelot Company, Genghis Division

  ORIGIN: Chicago, IL

  ACHIEVEMENTS: Two-year winner of Mr. Illinois Heavyweight Wrestling title, John Schultz Heavyweight Wrestling Excellence Award, Terminator World Championship first runner-up

  IP: 2053:db7:lj71::231:ll3:6e8

  SECURITY STATUS: Top Secret LANDLOCK-6

  At least I got to punch him, Tom thought venomously, and forced himself onward instead of jamming the bacon down Karl’s throat. He arrived at the Alexander male plebe table, and found Yuri standing with Wyatt, trying to coax her into sitting down with them.

  “You are always sitting alone,” Yuri said. “There is no need. You can join us.”

  She shook her head, arms crossed over her chest. “It’s not my table. I should sit with my division.”

  “Why?” Vik called back to them, mouth full. “No one in Hannibal Division talks to you.”

  Wyatt glared at his back.

  Yuri was more diplomatic. “This is not morning meal formation. No one cares about assigned seating.”

  Wyatt made no effort to lower her voice. “But, Yuri, Vik sits with you. I don’t like Vik.”

  “Hey,” Vik protested, looking over his shoulder, “Vik is two feet away from you.”

  “You call me Man Hands.”

  “I only point out the obvious facts, such as the manliness of your hands and the way your division—” Vik stopped mid-sentence when he spotted Tom, hanging back with his tray. Wyatt’s dark eyes moved to him, too, and widened. She closed her mouth tightly, as if biting back whatever she wanted to say.

  “Timothy,” Yuri said softly, “you look troubled.”

  “Really? Why would that be?” Tom sniped. “Maybe something to do with Programming?” He realized only after dropping into his seat that Yuri couldn’t know what happened. Already, he was zoning out, staring into space, his face cloudy.

  Awkward silence hung on the air. Then Wyatt blurted, “How was being a dog?”

  Tom scowled. “Great, Wyatt. Really great. I love looking like a moron in front of hundreds of people.”

  Vik and Wyatt watched him with grim expressions. And then, Vik’s lips twitched. And twitched more.

  “And I can’t figure out why he kept programming me to obsess over his stupid podium,” Tom ranted on. “Maybe he’s fixated on the podium, huh?”

  Vik’s entire face spasmed.

  “And thanks for leaving me there, by the way, you guys. I got to wake up to Elliot Ramirez stroking my hair! You know what I want to wake up to? Gosh. How about anything other than some guy stroking my hair?”

  “Look on the bright side,” Vik said, his voice choked. “At least Blackburn didn’t add an algorithm to make you start humping anyone’s legs . . . Or, you know, the podium.” He might’ve been trying for something genuinely consoling—but just saying that broke his self-control. He burst into laughter.

  Wyatt pressed her palm over her lips, too.

  “Glad this is funny to you people,” Tom said.

  But Vik was doubled over, and Wyatt’s shoulders were shaking, and suddenly Tom’s black mood broke, and he found his lips pulling up in a grin. Just like that, it was funny to him, too.

  Because yeah, they were laughing at him. They were laughing with him, too.

  Tom had never stayed in one place long enough to make a friend before. But he began to understand suddenly what friends were for: they reminded you that things weren’t so bad after all. Reminded you never to stop laughing at yourself. He might’ve felt for a minute there like he’d turned back into Tom the loser, but he hadn’t. This was never going to be Rosewood.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  .....................................................................

  Chapter Eight

  TACTICS WAS A different beast from Programming. Located on the very top floor of the Spire, the MacArthur Hall was a vast planetarium. A screen curved over their heads, and the diagrams in Tom’s head informed him the roo
f and screen were capable of retracting. CamCo held postmission briefings here to analyze their battles and see where they went wrong.

  Here the plebes got to analyze CamCo’s past battles, too.

  Here they learned about real war.

  Tom watched Major Cromwell assume the podium at the front of the room. “Sit down.”

  Her hoarse voice flooded the room without her raising it. The last stragglers were in their seats before the ping could even say, Afternoon classes have now commenced.

  “You’ve downloaded this information,” Cromwell said briskly, “so let’s make sure you understand it. We’ve been examining the evolution of combat, weaponry, and tactics. History has shown one simple fact: people are people. Period. All the technology and progress in the world can’t change the fundamentals of human nature. There will always be war as long as human beings are capable of envy, hatred, and fear.”

  Cromwell typed something into a keyboard attached to her podium. An image of an oil painting depicting a bloody battle plastered itself across the vast screen. “Combat itself has taken new forms over time. In the ancient times, whole armies descended upon nations, fighting in the names of kings, of religions. Over the years, the scope of violence narrowed. Technology improved targeting to the point where we could destroy certain individuals rather than whole communities, attacking by air rather than by planting armies.”

  Tom heard a rustling next to him. He looked over and saw Beamer slouching down in his seat. Greenish light flickered over his pale features, and Tom glanced back at the grainy image on the screen—a target locked on a flat, rectangular building from somewhere above it.

  “Wars were fought over oil, over territory. And now, the last engagement on Earth thirty-three years ago saw us destroying people and leaving buildings and infrastructure intact, all on behalf of private business, in the name of patents. Your generation may take for granted that countries go to war on behalf of private rather than public interests, but this wasn’t always considered an acceptable reason for violent conflict. Let’s trace the changes that led to this.”

  “Let’s not,” Beamer murmured. “I hate history.”

  Vik elbowed him but kept his dark gaze on the front screen.

  “Early in the century,” she said, “globalization was uniting countries across the traditional bounds of cultures, languages, and borders. Old boundaries became virtually obsolete. As a result, a corporate class emerged, with executives who identified not with any nationality but rather with the business interests that bound companies to one another. Without national loyalties of their own, large businesses moved jobs from country to country whenever labor was more affordable. This depressed wages worldwide. Most businesses were left without a consumer base, and this led to the Great Global Collapse. The companies that survived were the ones with control over vital resources. There are two prominent examples. The first one is Dominion Agra.”

  Tom stiffened. Dominion. Where his mother’s boyfriend, Dalton, worked.

  “As you know, when a company creates life, they own the patent to it. Over the last century, Dominion Agra’s genetically engineered plants and animals cross-pollinated and cross-bred with the natural food supply. There are no consumables today without some trace of Dominion’s patented genetic material. The dominance of their genetic strains led to their total ownership of the food supply. This leads to the other monopoly you’ve heard of: Harbinger Incorporated, with their patent on Nobriathene, an industrial by-product that, over time, leeched into the water supply all over the world. It’s completely benign—nonreactive in a human body, but to this day, no one has developed an effective filter for it. If you drink water, use water, irrigate your crops with water, you’re making use of their patented chemical. That’s why your families pay a usage fee every year to Harbinger along with their water bills. Whatever the global situation, the elements of basic subsistence are always in demand. Dominion and Harbinger have both thrived in this post-Collapse world.”

  Tom had heard all this from Neil. Even though they were on opposite sides of the World War III conflict, Dominion Agra backed Harbinger’s patent, and Harbinger backed Dominion Agra’s patent. It was only natural, his dad claimed. Dominion Agra could brush off criticisms of its monopoly on food by pointing to the other culprit—the company with a monopoly on water. They justified each other’s existences. And besides, it wasn’t like anyone in a position of power in the world actually wanted to break their monopolies. Every politician hoped to get a job in a Coalition company once they were through with public office.

  “And now,” Cromwell said, “this brings us to what happened in the Middle East thirty-three years ago. This conflict had been coming for a long time. It was the last show of mass resistance against the centralization of global authority. As influence in the rest of the world became more concentrated in the hands of a worldwide business community, it went the opposite direction in the Middle East. Traditional authoritarian leaders were being replaced by representative governments. These societies resisted the idea of respecting the patents of either Dominion Agra or Harbinger. Because the resistance was at the street level—a societal refusal to play by the same rules as the rest of the world—it was determined that we would address the problem at the street level. With neutron bombs.”

  Tom knew the rest. It was the last time United States and Chinese militaries worked together on anything. They carpet bombed most of the Middle East with neutron bombs, weapons of mass death that killed people but left buildings. Every regional resource remained intact, available, ready to be purchased on the free market—if only someone could get rid of the 1.3 billion dead bodies ruining the view. Rumor had it, Dominion Agra and Harbinger were the first companies to open new offices in the region.

  There were protests, Neil told him, but they simply were ignored. And most people reacted to the genocide with a dull outrage that soon turned to apathy and finger pointing. Everyone blamed someone else. The few people in public office who suggested Dominion Agra and Harbinger had spurred their countries into committing a crime against humanity were quickly replaced by better-funded politicians willing to look the other way.

  It was another thing everybody seemed to feel angry about, but no one lifted a finger to act upon. His dad used to bring it up in his angry rants at the morning commuter crowd, usually while people scurried past him and tried to avoid him. Tom wondered suddenly where he’d been sleeping this last month—if he’d managed to win a few games in the last weeks. It occurred to him suddenly, for the first time, that he really had no way of finding out.

  “We’re not here to discuss ethics,” Major Cromwell went on. “That’s not our job—I leave that to philosophers. We’re discussing tactics, and I ask you to examine the bombing in purely tactical terms: the resistance came from the ordinary people, and neutron bombs targeted ordinary people. The weapons were suited to the nature of the conflict, and they destroyed none of the infrastructure that would hinder the repopulation of the region. One of the founding goals of the Coalition of Multinationals, in fact, was to see the Middle East revived as a region.”

  Tom slouched down in his seat. All he knew was, the Coalition of Multinationals—the twelve most powerful companies in the world, including Dominion Agra and Harbinger—united their power after the neutron bombing campaign. They did it, or so they claimed, to serve as a “privatized” version of the UN and prevent more neutron bomb–type incidents. But Neil always said they really did it because they’d just gotten away with something so horrendous, it convinced them they could get away with almost anything, as long as they united their power and held financial sway over every major government in the world. Together, the twelve multinationals had the money and the influence to do just that. Between them, they could buy and sell every country on the planet.

  “After that bombing campaign, the Coalition assumed a foremost role in global governance,” Cromwell said, “which lasted until the famous splintering of their alliance. One lingering consequ
ence of the Global Collapse was the devaluation of currencies worldwide. Precious metals soared in price, and the Earth’s reserves had been mined to near extinction. Nobridis Incorporated was the first company to turn eyes toward space. They wanted official backing from our government so they could receive logistical support from NASA, so they petitioned our Congress for the first bid to the territory. This insulted the Chinese, who argued that the United States didn’t possess the unilateral authority to grant a claim to a territory in space. When our Congress granted Nobridis that claim, China retaliated by awarding the exact same territory to Stronghold Energy. It was a symbolic gesture, but it started everything.”

  She flipped to an image of the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars. It was relatively close to Earth and one of the most potent, resource-laden areas of the solar system—therefore the most fiercely contested. Tom had seen so many news clips of skirmishes in the asteroid belt that they all blurred together.

  “Various companies in the Coalition sided with Nobridis and the United States, while others sided with Stronghold and China. Soon the Coalition itself was split down the middle, every company on one side or another of the Nobridis-Stronghold conflict. Whereas before, these multinational conglomerates spread their influence throughout the world, a new trend arose when they began concentrating on holding financial sway over certain governments and not others. Our allied multinationals stopped sending funds to China or Russia and concentrated instead on sending them to India and America. The other half of the Coalition did the reverse. In this way, a fight between Nobridis and Stronghold turned first into a struggle between two halves of the Coalition and then into a new space race between the Indo-American and Russo-Chinese alliances—and soon into World War Three.”

  She flipped to an image of a shipyard in space. “Within a decade, territory was claimed throughout the solar system when one side or the other established a physical presence—a mining facility, a shipyard, sometimes just a single satellite. But the conflict mounted when the Chinese seized an Indo-American-affiliated platinum mine in the asteroid belt. After this, the conflict evolved into a true war. Not a war in any classical sense, of course. There are no civilian casualties, no bombs, no deaths. Authority over our planet isn’t even in dispute—the warring companies of the Coalition still work together to shape the global agenda for the rest of us. But out in space, all bets are off.”