by Joe Shine
“No,” I said instinctively, knowing what was coming.
“Oh, yes,” Leslie responded.
“No,” I repeated. I looked at Jennifer, who looked like she was about to puke. “Why?”
“Because you have a weakness,” Leslie said. “And I will exploit it until it no longer is one. You know what to do. You know the consequences,” she said. She sat back down and placed the gun on her lap.
Jennifer slowly walked toward me. Fear of death had trumped everything else.
“Just get it over with,” I told her, shoving my hands in my pockets. No way I’d be touching her.
She didn’t know how to react.
“I’m not going to hit you, so hit me. Come on, hit me. HIT ME!” I finally yelled.
She took a wild swing and caught me on the bicep. I’d been hit by Wiffle balls thrown by toddlers harder than that. If that was the best she had, this was going to take a long time. I guessed I could take a dive.
“Again,” I instructed her.
Jennifer lined up for another shot, but it never came. Something out of the corner of her eye made her pause. She was looking at Leslie. I turned and looked, too. Leslie was on her feet, her gun pointed right at me. Not the first time I’d had a gun pointed at me, but it was the first time I actually thought I might be shot.
“Do it,” I dared, in spite of the fear. “I’m not gonna hit her.”
Leslie smiled and shifted her aim toward Jennifer.
“No!” I cried out, and jumped in front of her right as Leslie fired the gun.
A little something for the memory banks: getting shot sucks. It does. I won’t sit here and sugarcoat it or glorify it to make it sound like a badge of honor. A piece of metal is traveling faster than the speed of sound and you’ve decided to use your body as the best way to stop it. It’s a poor choice. The bullet tears through you, ripping up muscles and flesh, destroying nerve endings, and crushing whatever bones are in its way. It will feel like you just got hit by a sledgehammer and, if it doesn’t instantly kill you, you’ll wish it had. There is no toughing it out. Yeah, it sucks.
This particular bullet slammed into my left shoulder and spun me around like a top. I nearly lost my balance but threw the hand from my good arm down on the ground to keep me upright. Staggering, but still standing, I saw Leslie striding toward me and assumed it was to put the finishing touches on her “murdering Hutch” masterpiece.
I want to say my life flashed before my eyes, or I got a burst of clarity about the meaning of life, or even that I was so filled with rage I reached out to strangle her. But in reality, my jaw just fell open. Real proud of that moment. When Leslie was close enough, instead of dealing some death, she slammed the butt of her pistol down hard on my forehead.
Ouch! And out.
Chapter 6
Backstage Pass
I woke up in a hospital bed who knows how many hours later with a hard, plastic-like patch over where I’d been shot. (I say “plastic-like” because . . . well, that’s the best I can describe it, okay?) Holy hell, my shoulder hurt, though. It felt like someone had tried to rip my arm clean off. Painkillers, anyone? Anyone?
There was a curtain draped loosely around my bed in a semicircle, but I knew I wasn’t alone. I could hear people all around me. There was some chitchat and the sound of padded footsteps. I sat up, careful to keep my left arm as still as I could, and then gingerly got to my bare feet. (Oh, great, I was in a hospital gown again. I was starting to get used to having a breeze down below.) Using my good arm, I grabbed the curtain.
As I pulled the thin fabric aside I caught a glimpse of an infirmary of some kind. It was simple, sort of like the ones you’d see in old war or prison movies. Beds with wounded people in them. Not much else. Some were hidden by a curtain like mine, but most weren’t. The beds were full of kids. Some were sitting up chatting with friends. Others, well, they didn’t look like they’d make it.
One nearby conversation made my ears perk up. I recognized that woman’s voice. I regripped the curtain and gave one last tug to it, flinging it to the edge so that I could finally see . . . Darlington? She was sitting up happily in a bed two spots away from mine, chatting with Leslie.
“You!” I gasped at Leslie. “You shot me!”
They both turned.
“Hey, he’s up!” Leslie said. She patted Darlington. “Glad you’re okay, and congrats,” she murmured before standing up. As she walked toward me, Darlington—smiling way too wide for someone who’d been shot in the chest—walked over to an excited group of kids, who, coincidentally, all had similar injuries.
“You shot me,” I repeated for emphasis.
“Yeah, I did,” she said. “You were being a world-class a-hole. I had to.”
Okay, then. Another lesson learned: apparently here they could shoot you for being an a-hole.
“You shot me,” I said for the third time, trying my best to make sure she understood how uncool that was. “Right here,” I added, tapping my finger on the hard, plasticky thing that covered the wound. Terrible idea, because it still hurt like hell. “What is this crap, anyway?”
“It’s a bandage that won’t get in the way of your training,” Leslie told me.
“What’s going on? Why is she alive?” I jerked my aching head at Darlington. “Why didn’t you kill me?”
“Getting shot was Darlington’s final test. She’ll be a Shadow now.”
I blinked at her. “You people are insane.”
“Or we know how to motivate people. Every class gets the same first-day show because we need them to believe that if they don’t obey, they’ll die. Or at least get shot like you.”
She seemed to be waiting for me to say something. I didn’t.
Leslie sighed. “Look, Hutch, I’m pretty sure you’ve figured it out by now, but you’re not like the other kids. You have everything it takes to make it through this, and only a freak accident or your body’s inability to accept the fire shots will get in your way. The others aren’t so lucky. They’re weak and scared, and they still have hope that this is all a bad dream and they can go back to their families.”
I bit my lip. “That’s why you shot me?”
Her smile widened. “Yes, and because I was curious to see how you’d handle it. You’ve seen behind the curtain now, Hutch. Your classmates believe I killed Darlington. They also know I shot you, so they will do whatever I ask now. Which is in their best interests, and I think you know this. But you can tell them the truth. You’ve seen that she’s alive and well. Will you tell them?”
It was twisted and sick, but she was right. They needed to believe. If this was real, they needed to believe to survive.
Leslie nodded, as if reading my mind. “You’re wild and you’re hotheaded, Hutch. But you understand the world better than I think even you know.” She slapped her knees and stood up. “Hungry?”
I hadn’t thought about it until now and my stomach growled as if on cue. “Starving,” I admitted.
“Then get dressed and let’s go,” she said. “Your clothes are on that table.”
I glanced at the pile of yellow, then back at Leslie. “So just to be clear,” I said, “you’re gonna shoot me again if I refuse to hit Jennifer, aren’t you?”
“Over and over until you do,” she replied.
“Hope you got a lot of bullets, ’cause it’s never gonna happen. I don’t hit girls.”
“Your chivalry isn’t as charming as you think it is, Hutch,” Leslie said, her smile intact. “It’s insulting and sexist. I’ve seen girls her size rip guys like you apart in seconds. But I’ll make you a deal. If you obey me without question, without back talk—if you act like the perfect teacher’s pet—then I won’t pit you up against her or anyone, guy or girl, who’s half your size for a while.”
“Promise?”
Leslie nodded. “Promise. Trust me thoug
h, Hutch, after a bit of training and toughening up, you’d be surprised what some of them will be capable of. You won’t want to fight them, if you catch my drift.”
I threw on the last of my clothes and joked, “Looking into the future again?”
Chapter 7a
Time Jump!
The Technical Version
What? I can’t skip forward a bit? Why not? It’s my story, and I can do whatever the heck I want. I need some control here.
You don’t want to see how the video game is made; you just want to play it, right? But I get it. All you need to know is that while most of the others didn’t really like it at FATE, I had a blast from day one. (Okay, day two—since being shot by Leslie sucked.) It was fun here. I was a street thug who was being trained to be like James Bond—only meaner. I drank the FATE Kool-Aid. It was awesomely refreshing. I admit it. Isn’t that good enough?
Ugh, fine. Do you want to know what you missed? Here it goes:
Lots of fighting. Like every martial art you can imagine, all the way down to even learning “drunken boxing.” Learned things like the monkey-death-claw, the Succubus, a spinning-kicking-flipping move called the Charybdis, and about a hundred other unique Shadow moves that could deal straight death.
Learned how to drive everything that drives, floats, and flies. Motorcycles, cars, busted up farm trucks, tanks, snowmobiles (okay, I get it, that’s more skis, but you get the idea). I’d never really been a boat guy, but shooting a grenade launcher from a Jet Ski is something you can’t help but enjoy. And flying is weird fun. You’re in a hunk of metal, going three hundred miles per hour, that floats in the air. Think about it. We started on small Cessnas and then worked our way up to Gulfstreams, Apache helicopters, even old F-15s. I quickly learned I didn’t have the patience for drawn-out dogfights.
Guns? Can shoot ’em all. Rocket launchers, pistols, crossbows, machine guns. You get it. The Glock 41 Gen4 was my favorite, though. Simple, small, and reliable. If I had to choose a second, any machine would do. AK-47, SR-3 Vikhr, M4—they’re all good fun. Edged blades? . . . Yeah, never really got the hang of those, but I sure cut my hands a lot.
They taught us every method of surveillance in the book. Or, as I liked to call it, being super creepy. In under sixty seconds—the length of a bathroom break—I could have a room fully set up with mics, pinhole cameras, heat sensors—the works. I then got to watch everything unfold on my laptop screen from the comfort of my own chair like a dirty voyeur. I called it my Creepster Gear.
In one of the more odd moments, we took a creative writing class. No seriously, like a real class. Apparently we had to learn how to create believable cover stories for ourselves once we were out, in case someone saw something they shouldn’t have. The CIA, NSA, and DoD were the go-to options. It was a very strange few weeks that we spent writing.
The fire worked like a charm on me, and I was pain-free in eleven months. It was awesome. Others were jealous.
I picked up everything really quickly (like ticks to a hound, one guy said) and within a few months moved up from my year to train with the older kids. Within two years I had made it all the way up to training with the oldest kids there. I rarely got to see my friends anymore.
Chapter 7b
Time Jump!
The Emotional Version
Promise, this is the last time I’ll mention sunshine and daisies. Because it wasn’t all that. Learning to be a Shadow sucked sometimes. Yeah, just about every moment of the day was dedicated to training like machines, but we were still kids, you know? You can’t help but be human.
In a sneaky-sneaky exercise, little Jennifer snuck up behind me with a shovel and beat the crap out of me. I had no issues fighting anyone after that, guy or girl.
A month or so after starting, a group of Hunters (they’re the best of the best, like the SEAL Team of FATE) came and told us that if we could escape campus, we’d be free. As in never-come-back, go-live-your-old-life free. I didn’t really want to—going back home was a downgrade, aside from being able to hug Mom one last time—so I played along. While most kids bolted for the stairs and went up (we assumed we were underground), I went down to explore areas we’d never been allowed to go to. Long story short, it ended in the most humiliating beating I received during my time there. Too humiliating to discuss. But I got to see and play with some cool stuff before they got me.
After my first year Leslie told me privately that she got her “promotion to the armory.” I figured that meant she would be the new Lt. Col. Shane. But what the hell did I know? She snuck me a piece of cake, which I ate.
In one of those no-bleeping-way moments, I ran into a guy I knew. His name was Jurgen. He was a beefy football player from across town. I’d hated his guts; now I hugged him, and we hit it off instantly. We were like peas in a pod: Hall and Oates, Lewis and Clark, Franco and Rogen. Jurgen died nine months later in a torture exercise, thanks to some overzealous third year.
I got close to Sam. Too close . . .
They used the attraction against us so much that we had to stop seeing, talking, or even sitting together. They even promoted me—moved me up ahead to train with older classes—but that didn’t mean I stopped stealing the odd glance or five. Didn’t fool them one bit. Every time I did, I was clobbered. They hunt down, destroy, and torture attachment out of you. She was my one weakness, and it had to be beaten out of me.
Feel better? Good, because I’m sort of depressed now. Thanks for making me rehash all of that. Nothing like remembering lost love, abuse, or cold-blooded murder to start the day off right.
Chapter 8
Seriously?
I was pretty sure I was sixteen. Our calendars didn’t have numbers—only the days of the week with our schedules listed out. I lost track of actual days pretty quickly here. But I knew I was close-ish to being sixteen, give or take a few weeks.
Does that really matter? I guess not, but in the outside world sixteen was a big deal, so I figured I should at least acknowledge it.
Happy birthday to me. I’d take an extra portion of fruit at dinner or something.
Anyway, I’d been training with the fourth years for a couple months at this point and holding my own. I didn’t have any attachments in that class, not like I had with Sam, or even (briefly) with Jurgen. Fourth years had a lot more free time to train on their own and fine-tune weaknesses. You can only train so much though before you burn out, so I had been in the armory, hanging out with Leslie. Sick as it was, she was probably my closest friend. She had become like my big sister. She seemed to need our relationship as much as I did. Yeah, she’d shot me, but we laughed about it now.
“You don’t have to like it; you just have to do it,” Leslie reminded me for the hundredth time.
I’d gotten the order to go to the driving simulation room—a place I never wanted any part of—and Leslie had tagged along to pester me like only a sister can.
“I know,” I said. “Just seems cruel for cruelty’s sake, you know?”
“It isn’t and you know that.”
“Do I?” I only half joked. We walked a bit in silence before she smiled and said, “Remember when you used to sing all the time?”
I gave a polite snort. “Yeah. Y’all broke me of that habit.” I held up my arm. “In three places. I got it: stop singing or die.”
“Do you still sing?” she asked.
I frowned at her. “Why?”
“You should know better than to ask ‘why’ around here, Hutch,” she murmured.
“Fair enough.” I shrugged and turned away. “Yeah. Sometimes when I’m alone and I know I won’t get my arm broken again for it. So pretty much only in the shower, I guess.”
When we reached the door to the driving simulation room, she stopped. “See you tomorrow,” she said.
I raised my eyebrows. Anything else you want to add? Like Happy birthday?
�
�You don’t have to like it,” she reminded me.
Well, there was my answer. I saluted her. Thanks, Big Sis. Happy birthday to you, too.
The real driving room housed every type of enhanced weaponized vehicle you could name—car, boat, tank, aircraft . . . whatever. I’d gotten to the real room quicker than most. First and second years stuck to the simulator. It was safer. It was also less costly, but I’m just guessing here since money didn’t really appear to be an issue in these parts. I hadn’t talked or thought about money in over two years, but it was basically all I thought about beforehand. Still, you lose control of a seventy-ton state-of-the-art tank and bad things happen, no matter where you are. Everyone got to use the cars, boats, and tanks at some point, but you really had to earn real flight time. There was the obvious, and understandable, hesitation about tossing the keys to a plane that can go Mach 5 to a homesick kid who might choose to bolt, and then there was the location of the FATE Center itself. Keeping its location secret was not something that was taken lightly. So all flight training outside the simulator took place at night. Hey, if you can fly at night, you should be able to fly in the day, right? Maybe a handful of kids in the driving simulator room I was going into would ever get the chance.
Waiting for me inside were Clayton and Elin. I’d known Clayton for a while now—ever since I’d gotten bumped up to the seniors. He was a short but super muscly guy from South Africa (loved hearing him talk), and Elin was a stunningly gorgeous and fit girl from Norway. Actually, to be fair, anyone who survived here was fit. Hard to be anything else.
They were sitting with a tech behind an array of monitors, which showed mostly excited first years scrambling into the driving simulation boxes.
“Who do you want, Hutch?” Clayton asked me.
I stared at the monitors and put off choosing for as long as I could, but in the end I had to point at someone.
Lessons had to be learned and limits had to be tested for all of us at all times.
