It’s all planned.
But as Jahx evaded his fighters and peeked out his warship, Cam let go of the controls. There’s no point, he thought, licking his dry lips. He already knows.
It didn’t matter if he played a conservative game, waiting for Jahx’s fuel to run out, or an aggressive one, sacrificing one of his warships to take out his enemy’s weaker fleet. Jahx would adjust, he would play out the game to his favor, seeing possibilities in whatever impossible scenario Rogman—or any other enemy—ever threw at him.
Cam looked through the sphere, to the boy playing him from across the electric playing field.
I can’t let you win.
Blue eyes turned yellow in the shifting colors, giving them an eerie, otherworldly glow. Everything about Jahx—the innocence of his smile, his warm kindness, the way he saw and understood much more about Cam than he would ever let himself appreciate—dissolved in the blaze of light and arcade noise. His sisters, closer to him now, looked just as inhuman, eyes with the same alien shine, just like—
The wild dogs. The savages that almost killed him on Cerka, ripping his arm up, maiming him; destroying that last bits of him that ever mattered. Bloody beasts that wouldn’t have murdered him for their own survival—
Just like everything and everyone in this terrible universe.
Cam tasted blood in his mouth, his right arm curling up to his chest as old haunts whispered in his ear: “Kill the enemy before he’s got a chance to kill you.”
He deployed all his ships, save his warships, straight at Jahx, fanning out in a star formation around the moons, leaving him nowhere to run.
“What the hell are you doing, Ferros?” Stempton said, looking over his shoulder.
Destroying my enemy.
As the rest of his fleet hurtled at Jahx’s hidden forces, he programmed the jumps on his warships.
“You’re even dumber than I thought,” Stempton scoffed. “Don’t leave your warships behind.”
I’m not.
But just before he hit the punch to engage his warships’ jump drives, he looked up. You can’t escape this.
Glowing eyes stared back, his own words echoing right back: You can’t escape this.
Terrified, he hit the punch, jumping his biggest starships inside the two moons. The resulting blast seared across the playing field. But what was meant to flush out Jahx’s forces straight into his attack did something unexpected.
“What the—” someone in the crowd exclaimed as Jahx’s warship jumped a fraction of a second later, deflecting the explosion from his own forces, sending the fatal blast into Cam’s oncoming fleet.
“Chak…” Walli said as the scoreboard dinged and the match ended.
How did he do that? Cam said as the sphere reset, and a new timer appeared in the upper quadrant.
An impossible victory. A perfectly timed and executed counterattack—one that could only be divined by not just a genius, but a commander with brilliant intuition—
With forethought.
“Jeez, Ferros screwed that up,” someone in the crowd muttered.
Others whispered their own insults and explanations: “He’s a burnout.”
“Stupid half-breed.”
“Did you see how bad he lost?”
“You gonna take this, rub?” Stempton whispered in his ear as the crowd dispersed and Jetta put a hand on both her siblings to get them to leave.
Cam caught Jahx’s eye before he got up. Emotions he could not name swelled within him, boiling through his stomach and chest, and burning through his arms and legs.
Memories assaulted him from not long ago: “I came to visit my friend.”
A warm smile, a soft hug.
“Thanks, Cam; for everything.”
(It’s not real.)
All doubt washed away from his mind as steam blasted from his nose and mouth, and his eyes turned into burning coals.
“Yeah, that’s right. Get pissed. Take his sorry little assino out.”
Cam shoved Stempton back. “Get off,” he hissed. But the smile never left Stempton’s face as he stormed out of the gaming arena.
After scaring a few kids off a lift, he programed it to take him to the c-corridor, to his secret place—their secret place—knowing he would come.
“Come on, you monster,” he said through gritted teeth. “No tomorrows.”
***
Cam waited less than ten minutes before a sound came at the entrance to the c-corridor lavatory. Crouched on top of one of the door-less stall toilets, he waited until footsteps tip-toed inside, and a timid voice whispered, “Cam?”
He listened for another few seconds, making sure no additional footsteps followed as the boy appeared in front of the sinks. As Jahx turned to face him, Cam leapt out and grabbed him by the collar.
“Cam,” Jahx said, putting his hands on top of his as he shoved him backward. “What are you doing?”
“Ending this,” he said, driving him hard against the sink.
He anticipated Jahx begging, pleading for his life, fighting back—or worse. But nothing happened, only uncomfortable silence as Cam held him against the sink, breathing hard, teeth grinding against teeth as he willed himself to do what was necessary.
“You don’t have to do this,” Jahx whispered.
“I know what you are,” Cam said, tightening his grip. “I want you to say it.”
“Cam, I—”
“SAY IT,” he screamed in his face.
Blue eyes, filled with tears, still held his gaze. “I’m your friend.”
“Lies!” Cam slammed his fist against the adjacent sink, knocking off a piece of the enamel. The faucet, disturbed by his strike, blasted water into the bowl. “You betrayed me.”
“I’ve never done anything to hurt you,” Jahx said, tears falling onto his cheeks. “I only wanted to help.”
“Say what you are,” Cam continued to scream, letting go of Jahx only to kick one of the stall doors off its hinges and bash down an empty shelf. “Say it!”
“I’m…” Jahx’s lower lip quivered. His secret, terrible and damning, rested on the tip of his tongue. Fear and anxiety reddened his cheeks and sucked in his breath. “…I thought you always knew.”
Cam cocked back his right fist and struck out. However, his blow landed next to the boy’s head, breaking the mirror. The jolt of pain made him retract his hand back. But it was the shock of his image, fractured and bloodied, that stalled his second strike.
He didn’t recognize himself. Pale skin, zig-zagging blue marks, sunken cheeks, hollowed eye sockets. I’m not me…
No, he had become something else. Something molded by war, pain, and suffering; something reborn in the need for revenge, pitiful and angry, uncontrolled. Someone Kara would not recognize as her brother—the very something Rogman had been trying to procure all along.
(No—end this,) the shadowed parts of him bade. (There’s no other way—)
Cam shook out the mirror fragments in his right hand and remade his fist, blood squeezing out of the cuts. “You’re a leech. You and your sisters.”
Jahx did not move, tears sliding off his cheeks and wetting his uniform top.
“Say something,” Cam said, kicking over a dusty rat trap and slapping his hand against a sink. Getting in Jahx’s face again, he screamed. “Say something!”
“I’m not going to stop you,” Jahx said, just above a whisper.
“Yeah, because you could,” Cam said. “Twist my mind up, confuse me, fill me with your stupid sentiments. Or better yet, just get your sisters in here, make them do the dirty work.”
“I’m not going to stop you,” Jahx repeated, this time his voice calm, even.
Cam seethed, punching the mirror again with his left hand, leaving a gigantic crack right down the middle. “Why? Because I’m just some dumb rub? You don’t think I could end you? Do you even know what I’ve done?”
“Yes.”
His answered jarred him. Taking a step back, surprise rerouted his rant in
to a question: “You…do?”
“It was an accident,” Jahx said, blue eyes focusing on something in the distance. He made a motion with his hands, as if he gripped the same scarf Cam did months ago. “You didn’t mean for Colin to struggle, just go to sleep.”
“How did you…?”
“Your dreams,” Jahx whispered, bowing his head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to look.”
“But if you knew, then why…?” He couldn’t speak the rest of his question, fearing the answer. Why would you still want to be my friend?
Jahx brought up a hand to the base of his neck, tugging at a curl of hair. “Because you’re not your past, and you’re not this place.”
“Then what am I?” he said, glancing again at his fractured image. “And what are you? Rogman’s secret weapon?”
“No. Me and my sisters are just trying to survive, just like you.”
“No—not like me,” he said, revving up again. “I’m a chakking street rub. You and your sisters can do anything. So ice out, run away—”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Yes, it is,” he said, kicking over another rat trap. “This Academy is lie. I’ve seen terrible things…” He stopped, afraid of what he might say, of what monsters he might bring to light.
(Iggie—)
(—Tomia…)
He clenched his jaw together. “Get out of here.”
Jahx shook his head, fresh tears in his eyes. “I can’t leave.”
“Why?!”
Blue eyes darkened. “There’s a bigger war coming; a war to end all wars. I have to be here, at least for now.”
“What? Because that nun told you so?”
Jahx didn’t correct him.
“That’s crazy,” Cam said, blood dripping off his knuckles to the floor. “What’s your plan then? Take over the Dominion Fleet?”
Jahx shuddered. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“Then you’re a fool,” Cam said. But he couldn’t hold on to his anger, not as the dark-haired boy looked away, withdrawing into himself.
“You once told me you were afraid of the future,” Cam said. Jahx didn’t look up, but he continued anyway, “Make it yours. Don’t let anybody tell you how’s it’s going to play out.”
“And what does that mean to you? Killing your friend?” Jahx asked, finally looking up. Blue eyes could have bored through steel.
Cam gulped. “You don’t understand…”
“No, I don’t. Why do you want to kill me?”
“Because I know what you are…”
“What?”
“Limitless,” Cam whispered. “And Rogman, that bloody, lying sack of sycha, can’t have you for his war. Nobody can.”
“That’s not all, is it?”
Cam’s throat tightened. “My family died because of leeches. I—I thought killing you would avenge my sister’s death, my family.”
“It’s not over,” Jahx said, plucking a shard of out of the remnants of broken mirror and offering it to Cam. “You can still end this.”
Cam took the shard, holding the sharp edge away from himself, pointed at Jahx.
“If you really believe I’m a weapon—if you think that my death will avenge your family—then do it.”
Squeezing the shard, the sharp edge bit into his palm and last two fingers, but he didn’t let up, not even as fresh blood dripped onto the floor.
“Finish the job, kid,” the old officer’s gruff voice called out from memory. “Go on. Before him or his friends come back and finish you.”
Jetta, Jaeia. If they came, he would be done for. And with their interconnectedness, he didn’t see how they weren’t there already, defending their brother and shredding Cam into pieces.
But as he lifted the mirror shard, blue eyes locking on to his, he remembered Jaeia’s words: “There’s always a choice, even if you don’t see it right away. Just look for it. Promise me.”
And Jetta’s: “Jahx was wrong about you.”
I’m not the monster, he tried to tell himself, guarding his choice with pain. But as he reared back his hand, his own sister’s advice whispered out across his heart: “This war, this misery; it can bring out the worst in people, Cam-cam… Don’t let anybody make you forget who you really are.”
(But I don’t know who that is—)
Not anymore. Not after losing everything, and everyone. Not after murdering Colin and destroying the last of his innocence. Not after realizing just how stupid and useless he was compared to the great young minds in the Academy, and abandoning all hope, all care for his own survival.
But looking at Jahx, at the boy who’s smile could light a room, who’s steady gaze and heartfelt answers warmed the coldest parts of him—
(Was it real?)
—the same boy who visited him in the infirmary, taught him biochem and gaming strategy—
(With his leech tricks!—)
—Who outwitted his teachers, destroyed his opponents in the Endgame—
(He could be the destroyer of worlds—)
—The same boy who understood his need to hoard food, kept his secrets—
“I’m glad you’re here, Cam.”
—who sought him out while everyone else avoided him in fear—
(Who hugged me—)
“Just hold out my love…”
“Go,” he whispered, arm trembling, about to shoot forward. Tears pricked his eyes, slid down his face.
“…for blue sky tomorrows…”
“GO!”
Jahx ducked away, running out of the door just as Cam let go. Screaming, he threw the shard against the last of the shattered mirror, tiny bits exploding all around him.
What have I done?
Alone, he gripped the edge of the broken sink, bloody hands oozing into the bowl. He couldn’t look at himself, at the monster. At failure.
Why he rinsed off his hands, plucking out the glass shards and leaving them in the sink, didn’t make sense to him, not when he didn’t matter anymore. But he didn’t know what else to do, going as far to take off his uniform jacket and ripping up his undershirt to use as a bandage to staunch the bleeding.
He walked back to the barracks, not caring that the other cadets fled as soon as they saw his bloodied, bandaged hands; that Stempton and his gang whispered and chuckled as he passed them by, or that Jahx sat with his sisters in Jetta’s bunk, all three of them staring at him with serious expressions, as if their brother had already spilled the horrors of what Cam had done. He didn’t look at them, at anyone, as he crawled up into his bed, ripping off his uniform top and throwing it on the ground before curling up to face the wall.
Cold, but not wanting to pull the blanket up over his naked upper body, he shivered and stared into the flat gray paneling. It didn’t matter if Stempton finally made his move, or if the triplets decided to end things first. Either way, his fate was certain, and if no one else came at him tonight, Rogman would finish things in the morning.
Mind blank, body throbbing, he tried to remember Kara’s favorite song, tried to remember anything of home, of promise.
“Just hold out my love…” he said, pressing his fingers against the chilled metal, trying to remember the feel of her hand in his, the color of her eyes, or the sound of her voice. “For blue sky tomorrows.”
Chapter 26
Dreams came in fitful waves of disjointed memories and imagined fears. In one moment, he lay paralyzed in a hospital bed, a machine monster with Naum’s face lumbering down the dimmed hallway, pinchers and claws opening and shutting, excited for his vivisection. In the next, he stood at Rogman’s side atop a hill made of skulls, surveying a dead world with lightning-streaked skies and ruined buildings.
“I was right about you,” Rogman said, turning to him with a bloodied mouth and twitching mustache. “Now, look at all you’ve done.”
But the worst, the one that made him cry out in the night, unfurled from the darkest depths of the unknown:
Cam stood outside his family’s o
ld house, looking through the bay window at the scene inside: His mother, carving up the game bird as his siblings and his father passed around the vegetable mix and the steaming pile of red potatoes. A fire crackled in the hearth, and an old-timey tune played over the radio. The laughter, the chatter, filled him with joy and longing, but as he ran to the front door and let himself in, everything—everyone vanished. Instead, he stood in the middle of a red and gray apartment with sagging walls and battered, overturned furniture. The stifling heat crushed down on him, making him pull off his jacket and gasp for breath in the thin atmosphere.
Where am I?
He didn’t recognize this place. Light streamed through the boarded-up windows, and the heated air carried an odor of metal and must, like the inside of a mine.
“You should go.”
Cam wheeled around to find the speaker. A small boy, frail and painfully thin, stood in the doorway out of the living room. At first Cam didn’t recognize him; the skeletal, bruised-up child before him looked one weakened heartbeat away from death. But his eyes, bluer than the vibrant shallows of the ocean, held the same kindness and compassion that already held his heart.
“Jahx?”
“You should go,” he repeated, “before he returns.”
I’m on Fiorah. It took Cam a moment to understand his circumstances, to recall Jahx’s fear, and the cruelty he suffered at home. “You mean Yahmen?”
The boy shriveled up, going to his knees and making himself small inside the doorframe. “Go.”
“Where are your sisters?” Cam tore around the doorway to the hallway. Three dirty cots lay in jumble, and pock marks and fresh stains in the dry wall testified of a recent fight. But not with his sisters. No, two little girls could not cause this much damage.
“Where are Jetta and Jaeia?” he asked again. “Where are your parents?”
Jahx stayed curled up in a ball, rocking back and forth.
Cam returned to Jahx, getting down on his knees and taking the boy’s tiny hands. “I’ll stay.”
“You can’t—he’ll kill us.”
Blue Sky Tomorrows Page 26
