Insignia

by S. J. Kincaid

  “You seriously wanna pay me double? The only base Yuri’s getting to is—” Tom stopped talking.

  Wyatt was standing just in the doorway, staring at them, her face deathly pale. The smile dropped from Vik’s face, and Tom suddenly felt like the biggest jerk in the world.

  She cast a stiff look back toward where Yuri was and then looked back at them.

  “I get it,” she said. “I suspected something when you guys started inviting me places and telling me to sit with you in the mess hall. I get it now. I suppose this is some real funny joke, isn’t it?”

  Tom blinked. Wait, she thought they were all having her on?

  Yuri emerged from the room behind her. “Would you guys like to—”

  Wyatt spun around and shoved him back. “Go away!”

  Yuri’s face filled with hurt.

  “Find someone else to make fun of with your friends!” She turned around and stormed from the room.

  Tom stood there frozen for a moment, and Yuri rubbed at his bruised forehead, staring helplessly after her. Vik looked at Tom, then mouthed, “You?”

  Tom let out a breath. “I’ve got it.” He turned around and headed out after Enslow.

  sts

  HE CAUGHT UP to Wyatt outside the museum, where she stood on the sidewalk, reaching up to scrub her sleeve across her face. Tom would never have imagined her as the crying type, and he really felt like the scum of the earth.

  “Hey, come on, Wyatt. Don’t cry.”

  She jumped. “I am not crying! I have allergies.” She started for the Metro stop, and Tom tailed after her.

  “You can’t just leave, okay?”

  “I’m not stupid.” She tore around to glare at him. “I know people don’t like me. I just thought Yuri . . . I just thought you were different.”

  “Yuri is different. He’s a good guy. And me, I don’t . . . I’m not . . . Come on, okay? Vik and I are just jerks. We didn’t mean anything by the bet thing. We were just messing around. Yuri’s got no idea, okay? It’s not like we were all setting you up. You’ve gotta know he’s into you.”

  “Me,” she echoed flatly.

  “Yeah. You’ve gotta see it. He wouldn’t even help us go after you in the war games.”

  “But Vik calls me Man Hands.”

  “That’s just a thing we humans call a joke. Vik gives most everyone nicknames. Again: me, Vik—jerks, got it? It doesn’t mean every guy in the world thinks the same thing. You’re supposed to turn it around on us, anyway. Like, maybe tell Vik he only thinks that because his hands are delicate and girly. That’s how it works. Anyway, I’ve never heard Yuri say it. I bet he thinks you have girl hands. I mean, have you seen that guy’s?” He raised his palms. “They could envelop people’s heads.”

  She finally stopped walking, seeming to consider it. “So what am I supposed to do now?”

  “Just go back and . . . I dunno. Talk to Yuri. And don’t hit him? Or something?”

  “What about your bet?”

  Tom rubbed the back of his neck. “Do you like Yuri? If it’s no, you might as well break it to him. If it’s yes, well, I’m out thirty bucks. No big deal.”

  She shifted her weight and took a few deep breaths, like she was bracing herself for something. Then her dark eyes moved up to Tom’s. “Do you think I should be with him?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “But you can. Do you think that he’s really the one I should go out with? You bet against it. Was there a reason for that?” She was looking at him with an odd intensity. Tom stared back, bemused, and her cheeks grew pink. “I don’t want to make a mistake, that’s all,” she mumbled, looking at the ground. “I just don’t want to do the wrong thing here.”

  “Wyatt,” Tom said with a laugh, and he reached out to poke her shoulder. “It’s not like you’re marrying the guy.”

  She turned very red, and jerked back from him. “Fine. Fine, I’ll just go tell him yes, then. Okay?”

  Tom watched her hurry away, wondering why she looked so sulky about a guy wanting to ask her out. If he ever found out some girl liked him, he’d be all over her.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

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

  Chapter Fifteen

  TOM DIDN’T HEAD back to the museum. He figured it would be better to give Wyatt and Yuri a chance to do whatever they were going to do. If he knew Vik, he would probably stick around just long enough to make sure he’d won, and then head out to find Tom and rub his victory in his face.

  So Tom loitered on the curb, chin propped on his hands, elbows on his thighs, waiting for Vik. He was caught off guard when a limo slid to a halt in front of him and a voice called from its plush depths: “Tom! Tom Raines. Hi, there!”

  Ugh. He knew that voice.

  He raised his head up. “What are you doing here, Dalton?”

  “I heard you were in the area. I’ve been waiting for you. Now get in here.” Dalton gestured Tom into the limo.

  “I’m busy.”

  “No, you’re not. I’ve been waiting for you too long already. Come on.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Don’t be rude. I went to the trouble of having Karl Marsters check the location of your GPS signal,” Dalton answered. “I really wanted a chance to talk to you. Now get in.”

  The driver circled around to open the door. Tom reminded himself that Dalton was with Dominion Agra. He couldn’t blow him off.

  He glanced toward the museum—no sign of Vik yet—and then dropped into the backseat and slouched down, hands in his pockets. “I can’t go far.”

  “Not a problem.” Dalton nodded to the driver, and soon they were heading off down the busy Washington, DC, streets. He poured himself some brownish liquid, then offered Tom the bottle. “Scotch?”

  Tom shook his head. “Not allowed.”

  “You think they’d kick you out of the Spire for this? I know they’ve got rules, but one word from me to them, and they’ll look the other way.”

  “I don’t like alcohol.” Even the smell of it made him nauseous.

  Dalton eyed him knowingly. “Reminds you of that old man of yours?”

  Tom’s hands curled into such tight fists his fingers throbbed. He imagined breaking that glass over Dalton’s head.

  “Well,” Dalton said, waving as though to move them on from the subject, “we’ve already had a chance to speak once, Tom, about the possibility of Dominion Agra sponsorship down the road.”

  “Yeah, and I don’t get it,” Tom cut in. “I’m a plebe. Not even a Middle. I’m nowhere near CamCo level yet.”

  “These things start earlier than you think. Dominion has dawdled with courting Combatants in the past, and regretted it when the other companies jumped all over them. We’ve decided to start securing the bonds of loyalty earlier in the process.”

  Tom suddenly understood it. He laughed. “So let me get this straight: once someone’s about to be a Combatant, and they have a choice of sponsor, they don’t tend to choose you guys, do they? Huh. What do you think turns them off, Dalton? You as Dominion’s sales guy, or the whole genocide thing?”

  Dalton’s hand clenched tightly around his glass. “Believe me, we could have more Combatants tomorrow if we wanted, Tom—but we want the right ones. The ones who wow us. If we started working with someone while he was a plebe, for instance”—this was spoken pointedly—“we would have more than enough time to groom him into the refined, polished Combatant we’re looking for.”

  “Refined and polished. Like Karl Marsters.”

  Dalton actually winced. “Karl is another issue entirely. And as for that other charge you made . . .”

  “You mean the genocide thing?”

  “What happened in the Middle East was hardly genocide.”

  “Last I checked, killing a billion people’s genocide.”

  “Genocide is the systematic destruction of another group of peo
ple because of their nationality or their race. It’s malicious. What we did was not. The entire region was engaged in the willful and repeated theft of our property—because, like it or not, if you eat it, it’s our property, and the farmers in those countries were never going to agree to pay a licensing fee. If one region of the world gets away with that, then everyone begins to think they can get away with it, and soon we have no company. There was no malice in what we did. It was simply a business decision to keep Dominion Agra viable.”

  “I’m sure the dead people are glad they weren’t killed maliciously.”

  “And we even acknowledge that it was a terrible tragedy. We regret that they made it necessary even to this day. But think of what came from it: that area of the world was so contentious, there never would have been peace on this planet if it hadn’t been for those bombs. We haven’t lost a single human life in war since we neutralized that region. Those neutron bombs made today’s world possible.”

  “Yeah, of course no one goes to war anymore,” Tom exclaimed. “There’s no alternative when the Coalition owns everyone in power. And no one’s going to take you on if they’re just going to be wiped off the planet.”

  “That sounds like your father talking.”

  “No, it’s me. It’s me saying—” Tom realized it suddenly. “It’s me saying no. No way. I would never, ever help Dominion Agra. Even if it was the only chance I had to be CamCo, I wouldn’t do it.” He looked at the city street sliding past, realizing that some things were just too profoundly wrong. He also realized they were farther from the museum than he’d expected. “Let me out, Dalton. The answer’s no, and it’s final. We’re done here.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Tom. I’m not here to ask you to decide today.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve decided today.”

  “Fine.” Dalton raised his drink to him. “You’ve decided today. But this meeting isn’t about what you can do for us. It’s about what we can do for you.”

  “There is nothing in the world you can do to change my mind.”

  “Of course. Of course. Just take a look at something. That’s all I’m asking.”

  The limo slid to a stop and Dalton waited for the driver to come back—as though opening a car door was too lowly a task for him. Tom jerked open the door himself and clambered out. Dalton rose behind him, then left the door open for the driver to close. They were standing on a shaded street, the humid air clinging to the lush trees around them. Tom could see the dome of the Capitol Building looming in the distance.

  There was an unmarked door to a derelict building. It had a sign hanging on it: SECURITY ON PREMISES.

  “Come on, Tom.” Dalton tapped the sign. “This means it’s open today. When Beware of Dog is up, it’s closed. Very suburban middle-class, eh? Our private joke.”

  Ugh. That was it. He wanted to be gone.

  Dalton dipped into the stairwell and his footsteps echoed down. Tom looked around the street, but he didn’t see a Metro stop or even a taxi. He let out a breath and slogged down the stairs after him. He’d take one look at whatever Dalton wanted to show him, then he’d get a ride straight back to his friends.

  The farther downward they walked into the guts of the building, the more doors they passed through and the nicer the stairs became. They went from creaky old wood to marble, the doors from scuffed plaster to carved oak. At the bottom of the staircase, Dalton leaned in his eye into a retina scanner. The wall panel lit up, and a steel portcullis creaked up to let them into the room beyond.

  They emerged into a vast chamber with a polished glass bar, a vast screen on the ceiling and walls projecting an image of a sprawling green landscape, and scattered tables with privacy alcoves encircling them, the shadowy forms of people conferring within them.

  Dalton encompassed it all with a wave of his hand. “This is the Beringer Club, Tom. This is where the elite come to relax in Washington, DC. The political class, members of the Coalition when they’re in town, foreign ambassadors, and those world power players you may not have even heard of. Essentially, the top one percent of the top one percent. And you’re welcome to come here now. As a recruit for the Spire, you have a Challenge Coin, don’t you?”

  Tom delved into his pocket and pulled out the coin stamped with US Intrasolar Forces.

  Dalton tapped it with an elegant finger. “This is your access pass here, Tom. Whenever you want to come here, you can feel free. Anything you want here, you can ask them to secure and I’ll foot the bill. It’s on me. Consider this the first of many chances to mingle with the right people.”

  “I’m more of a wrong-people type of guy,” Tom remarked, glancing around. Signs directed people toward luxuries offered by the place: a sauna, tennis courts, a spa, and other stuff Tom was not the least bit interested in.

  He turned to tell Dalton this, but then caught sight of the VR panel on a distant wall.

  Dalton chuckled. “Ah, and that, of course. Those are for children of US congressmen. We get a few from the Spire here sometimes. That’s why there are private rooms with VR access. Even neural processor ports.”

  “What? I can hook in here?”

  “Some of Camelot Company come here all the time, Tom. They like the privacy. Every transmission in the Spire is monitored. Rather cramps your style if you’re, say, meeting a girlfriend or exploring certain sims.” He leaned closer, leering. “I remember being a teenage boy, after all.”

  Tom got the implication and didn’t appreciate the seedy smile on Dalton’s face. This is the guy dating my mother, he thought, disgusted.

  “And you’re setting me up with this out of the goodness of your heart?”

  “That’s right,” Dalton answered. “I like to think an act of generosity begets another.”

  In other words, he wanted Tom to come here, rack up a debt, and feel obligated to pay it back, probably with interest. Tom glanced back toward the access port room. He supposed it might be useful having some nonmonitored means of hooking himself into the internet, but he didn’t know. Something about this place gave him the creeps. Between the lack of windows, the shadowed forms speaking in muted voices within the privacy alcoves, and the steel bars of the portcullis, it struck him as something much more malevolent than a club for rich guys.

  “All right, thanks for showing me. I’m gonna head back up now.”

  But Dalton waved down one of the large employees of the joint, a guy with a crew cut and huge neck. “Hayden, can you show Mr. Raines the private neural access port? Then he’ll want a ride back to the Pentagon.”

  The man, Hayden, nodded.

  Tom, irritated, followed the large man. “I don’t need a ride. I can find the Metro.”

  The big man stepped aside so Tom could go into the private neural access parlor. Tom gave it a cursory glance. Yeah, it was nice. Nicer than the Spire with its makeshift cots—here they were reclining loungers that he’d bet cost a regular guy’s yearly salary.

  “It’s great. Now I’d better—”

  But Hayden was moving forward, his sheer bulk making Tom stumble into the room. He was like a walking wall or something. And when Tom tried to shove away from him, he found himself being manhandled toward the recliner.

  “Wait, wait,” Tom bellowed at the man, fighting his grip. “What are you doing? Let me go!”

  Dalton appeared in the doorway over his shoulder. “Do you need another pair of arms, Hayden? I can call someone over.”

  “I’ve got him.” Hayden squashed Tom into the recliner so hard he couldn’t breathe. And then a meaty grip bruised his chin before Tom could jerk his head away. Tom kicked out at Hayden—it felt like kicking a wall for all the effect it had—and something familiar poked at the back of his neck. Then the wire clicked into his brain stem.

  Tom’s vision tunneled, sensation drained out of his limbs. It was like hooking in during applied sims, but Tom didn’t sink into some other world. There was no sim running to slip into. The familiar paralyzing of his muscles, the dimming of his senses. Ha
yden flipped him onto his back. Terror clawed inside Tom’s chest. What were they doing to him?

  Hayden released him. Tom forced his eyelids open. “What’s—what’s . . .”

  “Should I begin, sir?” Hayden’s voice was low and rumbling.

  “Get it ready,” Dalton said. “The boy’s being uncooperative, so work on that first. Some behavior modification to start.” He leaned forward to see what Hayden was typing. “Yes, the primer. That one. That’ll be about four hours?”

  “Approximately. And that’s all I’d recommend installing for now. You don’t want him to disappear for too long.”

  “Fine. We can upload more when he’s back in the Spire. I have someone I can use there. And be sure to plant a compulsion to return next week for another package of software.”

  Tom felt a spike of panic and tried to move, tried to lash out. He couldn’t. “Dalton, what are you doing to me?”

  Dalton pulled a cigar out of his pocket. “You always call me ‘Dalton.’ It betrays a lack of respect, Tom. From now on, it’ll be ‘Mr. Prestwick.’”

  “Let me go, Dalton, or I’ll kill you!”

  Dalton lit the cigar, the point of light cutting through the dimness. Wheels squeaked over to Tom’s side, someone rolling in a chair for Dalton. He settled down by Tom’s side and crossed his legs. “No need to panic, Tom. This won’t hurt.” A negligent shrug. “Or so I’m told.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Tom strained to see Hayden where he was typing something in. Something that was going to end up in his brain. The thought made him ill. What were they going to stick in him?

  Dalton chuckled. The smell of his cigar seeped through the air. “Come on, son. Did you think I was giving you a choice here? Did you really? Are you so naive?”

  Fury boiled through Tom. He’d murder Dalton. He would. As soon as he could move. “Let me go or I’ll jam that cigar down your throat!”

  “You’ll be let go, Tom. You’ll be released very soon. And you’ll be a much better boy when you are. You’ve got a lot that needs changing if you’re going to work with us.”