by Joe Shine
I understood it. It was the technique you’d use to break a wild animal and show them who’s Alpha. Totally made sense, too. When fire took a recruit’s mind or a Shadow’s FIP was killed, they basically became no different than a wild, rabid, crazy animal. Breaking them down and building them back up into something useful would have, in theory, worked. Problem with me was I still had my wits about me. I wasn’t an animal that was so easily broken. Luckily, I caught onto the game early and played along. It wasn’t easy and I almost slipped up a few times, but eventually he believed I’d been broken and rebuilt and released me into the general population with the others.
Gen pop was a bit surreal. The building was the exact same design, down to the paint color that FATE had been. All the rooms were in the same places, labeled the same, and even had the same stuff in them. I’d never been here before, but I had, you know? The only real difference, though, was that instead of being surrounded by future Shadows, I was surrounded by a thousand or so deadly, highly trained killing machines all teetering on the brink of a total mental breakdown. No one really spoke. It was mostly snarls and growls with a random word tossed in. Like a new caveman language. Talk about nuts. Holy heck.
We were all part of different platoons, but command was decided in a pack-like fashion. Didn’t like where you stood in the hierarchy of the pack? Beat the man or woman above you and take their place. Fighting and moving up or down the ladder was a constant, but given how super violent we all were, it was surprising that no one ever died. The reason? The Professor, who ruled over all, had forbidden it. As the true Alpha, his word was that of God and no one dared disobey him. No killing each other was a rule and you’d have had a better chance turning off gravity than finding anyone who’d purposefully break the Professor’s rules.
Funny thing was, he was an old string bean of a guy. Any one of us could have broken him in half, but that’s the genius, if you want to call it that, of him breaking us and building us back up. He owned you when it was over. Or owned them. I only played along.
It was also a bittersweet time because I got to see classmates I’d thought were dead. When a Shadow in training succumbed to fire, we assumed they were “put out of their misery,” so to speak, but apparently they were brought here. I remember running into Sissoko, who I’d been decent friends with. He looked at me and I could tell he recognized me and was trying to remember who I was. His jumbled-up mess of a mind couldn’t connect the dots, though. Instead, he got frustrated, growly, and mad and then stabbed me in the side with a pencil. I stopped trying to find my old friends or make new ones after that.
When we weren’t fighting amongst ourselves for rank, we were either doing elaborate combat training missions as packs or were left to our own devices to work on weaknesses. Again, crazy, totally unhinged man-animals with access to weapons. Great idea, guys, brilliant. But it worked somehow. This was a very odd place.
The training was so specific I knew it wasn’t just “training,” but that there was a plan. A reason for it all. We hadn’t been rehabilitated out of kindness. We were going to be used for something, something big. There was too much repetition of the same missions for it to be meaningless. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what it was for or to be here when it happened. Or did I? Maybe I could stop it.
I missed Ryo terribly. He was the beginning, middle, and end of my thoughts like that song you can’t stop humming. Ha, songs. I used to get paid to sing them. Seemed like a lifetime ago.
I have no idea how long I’d been here. Could have been three months, could have been three years. Time was irrelevant now. I was in the gym on the treadmill. No one really used the gym; they ran around in the woods like animals, so it was one of the few places where you could be alone, or at least be around only a couple of others, for a bit. The Nest was a cramped place, so anywhere I could find to be away from the constant fighting, I went. The weather outside was also beyond perfect today, so I was actually alone in here. I was going to soak it in while I could. I was sixteen miles into my run (and I didn’t know how far I’d go since what else was I going to do today?) when the alarms went off. I’d never heard them go off before, so I didn’t know what it was for. Fire? Bad weather? Were we under attack? What idiot would attack us? I stopped the treadmill and looked around, confused. We don’t act without an order from the Alpha. Alpha?
On the wall a comm screen came to life and on it was the cheery, bearded face of the Professor.
“Good afternoon, family,” he said, sounding happy.
He called us his family. He clearly has a very peculiar sense of family.
“We have a trespasser in our midst who must be located. She recently infiltrated and carried out an attack on our sister facility that killed many of our friends.”
What? No one attacked FATE. it would be the stupidest thing in the world. Oh yeah, let me attack a facility that is filled with trained killers training other people to be trained killers. The only place dumber to attack would be this place. Neither option was a smart move. But this girl had done it. Heck, apparently she’d done it, taken out some people, and lived. Yeah, I wondered why she’d tried something so suicidal, but mainly I couldn’t stop wondering how good she must be to have survived.
“She has threatened to destroy us now and we cannot allow that. She must be stopped, so as a special treat,” he said, smiling extra wide, “whoever finds her gets to kill her. I only ask that you please bring me her head when you’re done. Happy hunting.”
Even all alone down here I could hear distant wails of excitement. I could feel the ripple of energy. He’d lifted the killing ban. Everyone would be in a frenzy to find this person and finally scratch that killing itch. I had no interest in killing anyone, but maybe if I caught them alive, the Professor would make me his Beta or something. Yeah, I get that sounds a little weird, ah, whatever.
Then what he’d said sank in. If this person was out to destroy him and FATE, then had I just found an ally? Trying to escape out of this place alone was impossible, which is why I was still here, but with a partner and chaos all around? That could work.
Telling us we could kill had gotten the blood pumping, all right, but it would also make us, them, go into total frenzy mode. Focus will be lost as everyone goes into a sort of berserker rage to be the one to find her. There’d probably be more fighting amongst ourselves for prime ambush spots than actual hunting. The Professor, a genius by all counts, had finally made a mistake. He’d given me an opening.
After the message ended, the picture of the trespasser popped up. It was a girl with short black hair and freckles. She was older, but I had always been good with faces and recognized her instantly. I’d helped beat the hell out of her a long time ago at the driving range. She was a Shadow like me. And black hair and freckles isn’t a combo you forget.
I smiled. I’d just found my ticket out of here. Her name was . . .
“Ren Sharpe,” I said to myself.
Acknowledgments
My family rules! I have to say it. My wife is the tits, my mom and dad are aces, and my sister is dynamite. Oh, and my kids are pretty cool too, I guess. You are bounce boards, welcome distractions, cheerleaders, and cut-to-the-chase, no BS note givers. If it sucks, you cut deep and true and I wouldn’t want it any other way.
Remember that time you did something awesome and then thought, “Well that will never happen again.” That’s how I felt after I Become Shadow came out. No way I was going to get to do another one. No one’s that lucky. So thank you to Faye for pushing for Bobby, Dan for championing him, and Bronwen for green-lighting this spectacle. While I’m at it, thanks to Abby, Monica, Rachel, and everyone else at Soho Teen for everything you have or will do for this book. Like a good manager, I may not know exactly what you do for me, but dammit if I don’t appreciate the hard work.
Music is awesome. Don’t ever be ashamed of what tunes you dig no matter how weird. So with that in mind, special
thanks to Conner and Poss for showing me that a secret love of boy band music doesn’t have to be a secret. And thanks to the rest of The Family for unknowingly being at the core of every character I write.
As usual, Gig ‘em Aggies! and Fight On!
