Insignia

by S. J. Kincaid

  The crowd around him cleared as everyone tucked away the wires in the simulation chamber. Tom didn’t move right away. He felt like he was buzzing all over with the thrill of what had happened. When he did move, it was only to make his way across the room where Beamer was sitting on his cot, legs drawn up to his chest, arms wrapped around them. He looked paler than his character in the sim, his freckles a stark contrast against his white skin.

  Tom waved his hand in front of his eyes. Beamer flinched back from him and scrabbled off the cot, gasping for breath. “Get back!”

  “Tom, leave him alone,” Elliot ordered gently, watching from over Tom’s shoulder.

  “We’re friends.”

  Elliot drew him back with a firm grip. “Try to think: you just killed him.”

  “Come on.” Tom turned to Beamer incredulously. “I didn’t kill kill you. And hey, I died, too. Sword to the gut.” He clutched his abdomen and imitated his own gurgling from a minute before, then collapsed theatrically to the floor. But when he jounced back to his feet, Beamer wasn’t looking at him.

  Tom grew exasperated. Beamer died all the time. So this one death hadn’t worked out for him—he was fine now. Tom had died, too, and he’d never felt this alive or pumped up in his life.

  “Come on, Beamer! I beheaded you for your own good.”

  Beamer sent him a cloudy look, like he didn’t really see him. Elliot stepped between them, drawing that foggy gaze to his. “Stephen, would you like me to call the social worker for you?”

  “Yeah, that’ll make him feel better,” Tom said. “Call the guy a wimp.”

  Beamer’s eyes flipped back to him over Elliot’s shoulder. He stared at Tom for a long moment, and then bolted from the room.

  Elliot sighed and turned to Tom. “I think sometime we’ll need to have a discussion about showing emotional sensitivity.”

  Tom returned to his cot, perplexed by the whole thing. He tucked his wire into its slot and rose to his full height again, then noticed Wyatt standing by his cot, waiting for him.

  “I think you’re emotionally sensitive, Tom.”

  Tom met her earnest eyes. “Thanks, Wyatt.”

  She nodded crisply, satisfied her work was done, and left him there.

  Tom gazed after her, bemused. Nice of her to say, but then again, she wasn’t exactly the authority on emotional sensitivity, either.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

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

  Chapter Twelve

  THE INCURSION CAUSED what Tom thought was a ridiculous overreaction in the Spire. Every member of Elliot’s simulation group was escorted to the basement floor into a secured cell next to the Census Chamber, the private room that normally housed the census device. Blackburn plugged them into his census device one by one to retrieve their memories of the incident. Marsh, Cromwell, and Blackburn all watched the incidents play out on the screen.

  Tom, as the one who’d remained in the simulation, was stuck waiting after everyone else was examined. He sat beneath the census device, the streams of light blaring against his temples, his memory on the screens overhead.

  “Real bright move staying behind, Raines,” Blackburn remarked. “Did you honestly think you’d win that battle alone?”

  Tom bristled. “I figured I’d try.”

  “We have rules of engagement, Mr. Raines.” General Marsh spoke up. “They’re in your neural processor. You knew you were supposed to quit the simulation.”

  Despite the old man’s words, Tom couldn’t help but suspect Marsh approved of what he’d done.

  So did Major Cromwell. She regarded Tom with a gleam of speculation. “We compared the suspected IPs of Russo-Chinese Combatants with the IPs that connected with our servers. You ID’d the real Combatants among the virtual characters.”

  “I just had to watch a bit.”

  “Did you figure out their call signs as well?” Cromwell said, gesturing to the screen. “Any guesses?”

  “Is this really the time—” Blackburn began.

  “Give it a shot, Raines,” Cromwell said, silencing Blackburn by simply ignoring him. She flipped through the Combatants he faced.

  Tom named them. “Rusalka, Red Terror, Kalashnikov . . .”

  Cromwell’s lips quirked, and he knew she’d guessed the same ones. “And Medusa,” she finished for him, pausing it on a frame of Achilles.

  And Medusa. That was the best part of all.

  After Cromwell left, Tom answered a few more questions. Then he sank back into his recollection of the fight, replaying it in his head as Marsh and Blackburn began arguing over the security breach.

  “. . . clearly forgotten the last time. I’ll get something ready to send back to them—”

  “No, you won’t,” Marsh interrupted sharply. “The focus right now is on your firewall, Lieutenant, not retaliation. Obsidian Corp. has been arguing for months to the Defense Committee that one man can’t handle this entire installation, and after this—”

  “Funny you should speak of Obsidian Corp. I was just thinking of them. Have any of their consultants been around the Spire recently, sir?” Blackburn must’ve seen the answer on Marsh’s face, because he gave a harsh laugh. “They have, haven’t they?”

  “Senator Bixby requested a tour and brought some guests from the company. I could hardly refuse—”

  “Then with all respect, General, I’m merely surprised this didn’t happen sooner. They only needed to slip away from their escort for ten, twenty seconds. That would be enough time to upload a little something into the system.”

  “That’s a serious accusation, Lieutenant,” Marsh warned. “I suggest you keep it to yourself. I’m going to have difficulty explaining this to the Defense Committee as is. They’re going to pressure me to get you a support team—”

  “We’ve played this game, General, and you know we always lose. They’ll get a nice, long look at my software, and then Joseph Vengerov will hire them away.”

  “Then use a trainee. You said that Harrison boy is capable . . .”

  “But not trustworthy. I need . . . There’s a . . .” Blackburn trailed off, and spun around to see Tom still there. “What are you waiting for, Raines? Get out of here.”

  “Dismissed,” Marsh corrected, eyes on Blackburn.

  Tom was glad to leave them to it. He slid out of the chair and strode from the room, still mentally replaying the memory of that slow smile dawning on Medusa’s face as he died. He remembered those hands, cradling his head, and found himself wondering again if Medusa was a girl. He couldn’t imagine a guy doing that, not even if his avatar was a woman. He’d face Medusa again and figure it out. And next time, Tom would win. He’d come so close—it was that horse that got him. But next time . . . next time . . .

  There had to be a next time.

  Tom was still mulling it over later in the Lafayette Room at 1800 when all trainees were called together to discuss the incursion. Most of the plebes had arrived with their Applied Sims groups, so Tom settled next to Wyatt.

  They still had a few minutes before Marsh was due to assume the stage, so Tom took a chance. He nudged her, and asked, “Is there a way to contact someone’s computer with yours?”

  “Yes. It’s called email,” Wyatt replied.

  “No. I mean, if all you know is someone’s IP,” Tom said, thinking about what Cromwell said about the Spire logging the Russo-Chinese IPs, “can you leave a message for them on their computer even if they don’t grant you access to it beforehand?”

  “Is it someone in the Spire? If so, you can use net-send.” She was silent a moment, tapping her fingers on her keyboard. Then:

  See?

  Tom jumped. The word had just popped up in his vision.

  He spent a few minutes working out how she’d managed it, with Wyatt pointing out his mistakes, then he typed on his own keyboard. Like this? he sent back.

  That’s it. You’re not s
tupid at all!

  Tom laughed. “Thanks. I guess that’s a huge shock.” He typed out the next words, sent them to her processor. So why doesn’t everyone do this?

  Because people are lazy. They don’t bother figuring out stuff that takes time to learn . . . like all the functions of the neural processor. She gave a quick nod after sending that, utter confidence in her eyes.

  Tom shrugged. He supposed he should be offended on behalf of lazy people but he wasn’t. How secure is it? he typed.

  She typed again: I’ve encrypted this conversation. I’ll teach you the code, if you think you can learn it.

  I do learn some things occasionally. So I have a quick, unrelated question: what if I want to send something like this to the IP of a computer that’s not in the Spire?

  She peered at him, trying to figure out what he was getting at.

  Tom avoided her eyes. He really just wanted to get in touch with Medusa, maybe see if the guy—or girl—would fight him online sometime. But someone who didn’t know better might think he was doing something wrong. Medusa was the enemy after all.

  “The reason I’m asking is because Beamer could try it,” Tom said. “See how he’s not even here?”

  Wyatt glanced around the room. “I think he went back to his bunk.”

  “Yeah.” Tom began picking at a large splinter on the back of the bench in front of theirs. “He looked really wrecked. Maybe he’ll cheer up if there’s a way for him to contact his girlfriend . . . You know. Without having to sneak wherever he’s been sneaking at night.”

  “He’s been taking a big risk.”

  Tom’s hand stilled on the bench. “You know where he does it?”

  The eleventh floor, she messaged. He sneaks into the officers’ lounge, or even Blackburn’s office.

  “Seriously?” Tom said, so impressed by Beamer’s daring that he couldn’t manage anything else.

  It’s reckless. I don’t know how he’s avoided getting caught this long. He asks me to hide his GPS signal. I set up a router—his GPS sends the signal to the router, and then the router sends it on to the internal tracking system so it records the router’s location as his location. It looks like he’s just sitting on the toilet for three hours.

  Tom laughed out loud. “Wonder what Dr. Gonzalez makes of that?”

  “What are you two even talking about?” Vik crowed from several rows in front of them, where he was hanging over the back of his bench.

  I hate Vik, Wyatt messaged him.

  “Wyatt hates you,” Tom called to Vik.

  Vik bellowed a laugh. “There’s a thin line between love and hate, Enslow.” He held up his fingers and pinched them close together to make his point. “Thin, thin, thin.”

  She bristled at Vik’s laughter when he turned back to the stage. Then she turned her glare on Tom. “I told you that privately.”

  “But everyone knows you hate Vik.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “So Beamer,” Tom pressed. “Can he use the IP to net-send a message to her computer?”

  “It depends. There are probably thousands of computers out there with the same IP address. You’d need more than that. You need the network address. And once you get that, it really depends on how strong the firewall is on her server, unless she knew beforehand he was going to try contacting her.”

  “Beamer would have to hack through her firewall, then.”

  “Basically.”

  “Great.” Tom slumped back in his seat, deflated. The Spire may have logged Medusa’s IP, but that IP would be on the server in the Sun Tzu Citadel in the Forbidden City, China, a place with one of the most secure firewalls in the solar system. No way was Tom going to be able to hack into that.

  At the front of the Lafayette Room, Marsh mounted the stage. Silence descended over them. The general stood there and surveyed them solemnly. “As you might have heard, there was a very serious security breach today. Some Russo-Chinese Combatants managed to break through our firewall and enter a simulation. They were only here to wreak some havoc with a group of plebes, but this represents a severe internal security breach. Not merely because they penetrated our firewall and not merely because one of our plebes did not respond according to regulations by disengaging . . .”

  Tom slouched down in his seat when eyes moved his way. Come on. He’d held his ground. That’s what people were supposed to do if they weren’t total wimps.

  “. . . But also because the lot of you did not possess the offensive and defensive programming skills to counter this cyberattack. I see now that we’ll have to urge you to make more progress with your programming, and step it up a notch. I am including a second information pack regarding the rules of engagement in tomorrow’s download stream; a new list of penalties for noncompliance; and, of course, I am agreeing to one of Lieutenant Blackburn’s requests for further training measures.”

  Tom caught sight of a gleeful look on Blackburn’s face—which never boded well.

  Marsh leaned over the podium. “Trainees, Combatants, it’s time for some war games.”

  BLACKBURN OUTLINED THE rules in class the next morning. “For the next five days, we’ll wage this Spirewide brawl fought purely on a programming level, which means the vast majority of you are out of luck unless you get your acts together. You can use Zorten II, or even Klondike if you can manage it. Write a virus and inflict it on anyone you’d like, and then enjoy the carnage. I know I will.”

  Bodies stirred throughout the room. Tom could barely stay in his seat. He hated Programming, but the idea of an all-out brawl sent thrills of anticipation bolting through him. Maybe he could really work hard and learn a couple of lethal programs just for this.

  “General Marsh, of course, wants you to enjoy this, so we’ll make this a competition between the five divisions. The division that pulls off the greatest number of successful attacks will be the official winner. Let me note here that no one in the same division can use the same virus twice. If you’re thinking about just passing around one set of codes and racking up points that way? Forget it. If, however, someone from another division uses a virus on you? Feel free to steal shamelessly and deploy it on somebody else. That’s fair.”

  Heather raised her hand. “What do we get if we win, sir?”

  “Nothing,” Blackburn answered.

  There was a moment of silence, then Heather raised her hand again. “So why would we go to war with each other if we don’t get anything for winning? What’s in it for us, sir?”

  Blackburn chuckled. “A born mercenary, aren’t you, Ms. Akron? And here I was, thinking there are hundreds of teenagers living in close quarters. What, do you all get along so very well you can’t imagine doing this?” He looked around at them. “Aren’t there any grudges, rivalries, vendettas, or simply a good old-fashioned need for one-upmanship? Well, here it is, right here—the one opportunity you have to act on them. And yes, I know what some of you are thinking. You’re thinking, ‘I’ll just sit this out and no one will attack me.’ Guess what?” He cupped a hand to his mouth and stage-whispered to the microphone, “The world doesn’t work that way, and neither does the Spire. You try and sit this out, and I can guarantee you that someone from another division will find you easy pickings.”

  Tom found himself meeting Karl’s gaze all of a sudden. Karl drew a finger across his throat. Tom made a shooting gesture with his thumb and forefinger.

  Game on, Tom thought gleefully.

  “So here are some rules. Whenever you launch a program at someone, you’d better send me the code immediately afterward. If it’s a pathetic program that does something like display ‘Hello, world’ in their vision center? No points. In fact, negative points for wasting my time. It has to be a good program to score—I’m thinking Genghis chicken caliber.”

  Tom heard sniggering throughout the room from everyone but Karl and his friends. He used net-send and asked Wyatt, How’s it feel being the gold standard?

  She glanced back at him briefly and messaged
back, What difference does it make? It’s not like I can claim credit.

  At the front, Alec Tarsus raised his hand. “It sounds kind of arbitrary, sir. You just get to decide if we score points?”

  “Thatta boy, Mr. Tarsus. You see how it works. This is all me, and I am the god of this conflict. When I choose, I giveth or taketh away as I please. Here are some more rules: anything you program has to self-terminate within an hour. It can’t leave permanent changes to your victim’s neural processor. No lasting injuries—not to the physical body, not to the software. No attacks involving biological functions that might get you—and us—sued for inflicting psychological trauma. Use your common sense. I hope I’m not making a leap here assuming you have some. And I want to emphasize this: I don’t want to see a single virus that will physically damage a neural processor. One of those is worth more than the lot of you put together.”

  Karl’s shoulders slouched. He looked frighteningly sorry to hear he couldn’t permanently damage people. Tom supposed that should worry him, but it just made him feel even more eager to get started.

  Vik elbowed him. “You and me, Tom.”

  “You and me,” Tom agreed.

  “The Duo of Death.”

  Tom clenched his fist before him. “The Dealers of Destruction.”

  “The Doctors of Doom.”

  Tom thought about that one. “Isn’t there already a Doctor of Doom?”

  “No, that’s Doctor Doom from the Fantastic Four. We’re plural, with an ‘of.’ Doctors of Doom.”

  Tom thought about that, then whispered, “Okay, I’ll go for that. We have PhDs in the art of Doom.”

  “Nah, nah. MDs of Doom. See, PhDs mean we’re university professors on the side. MD means we practice medicine.”

  “Why would Doctors of Doom practice medicine?”

  “Fine,” Vik said. “You be PhD. I’m MD. We both get the title ‘Doctor.’”

  “Of DOOM!” Tom said, too loudly.

  Tom and Vik both jumped with a sudden feeling like an electric jolt. Text flashed across their vision: Datastream received: program Shut Up So the Rest of Us Can Hear initiated.