by Karen Bao
“Would you like to partner up?” Wes asks his rival in a civil tone.
“Stop being sassy, Kappa.” The Giant pulls Wes into his body and traps him in a headlock. “I’ve waited so long for this . . . now I’m giving you a preview.”
The Giant uses the strength in his back and arms to throw Wes down. As Wes hits the floor, he rolls on his back to absorb the impact. I remember how the Giant rammed him on the track last week—Wes seems like his perennial victim.
Without Umbriel by my side to fend off bullies all through Primary, I might’ve endured the same treatment I’m witnessing now. My best friend wouldn’t stand by if he were present.
While the other trainees watch in fear—Eri looks as if she’s about to cry—I run forward, my hand extended to help Wes up. He might’ve taken Mom, but he doesn’t deserve to be tormented as the Beaters tormented her.
He takes my hand, his grip gentle, and his legs—stronger than they look—do ninety percent of the work in getting him to his feet. He appears uninjured. We each avoid the other’s eyes, but I read utter surprise on his face. Maybe he wasn’t expecting the Giant to hurt him outright. Maybe he wasn’t expecting anyone to step in afterward. Especially me.
The Giant’s hooded eyes focus on me. “You Kappa’s little minion or something? I’ll spar with you—I’m a little sore. We’ll take it easy.”
Oh no. How could I have been so stupid? I’ve earned the enmity of the brawniest trainee, who’s clearly not the harmless landmass he seemed in Canopus’s office.
My knees quiver, but I fight to keep the fear off my face.
“Jupiter, let her be.” Wes hovers around me and the Giant, trying unsuccessfully to edge between us.
The Giant—Jupiter—ignores Wes and extends his mammoth hand to introduce himself. When I offer mine, he squeezes my fingers until my knuckles grate against each other. This trainee doesn’t broadcast his stats to everyone’s handscreen by speaking his name aloud. He has no reservations, however, about examining my information. As he reads, he arranges his lips into a square shape around his teeth.
“Damn, you’re only fifteen?” But he sees something else, and his caricature of a smile falls away. “But this IQ . . .”
Looking warily from me to Wes Kappa, Jupiter cracks the knuckles of his right hand against his hip. I lean away from him, filled with dread. Does he consider me even more of a threat now that he knows my IQ?
I check my handscreen: Jupiter Alpha is the Giant’s full name.
As I wiggle my fingers to check for damage, a warm hand finds my shoulder. The feeling is so familiar that I expect to see Umbriel in the flesh when I turn around. To my disappointment, I behold only the coppery hair and tranquil features of Wes, who I assume wants a go at Jupiter himself.
Wes focuses metallic eyes on me for a heartbeat before looking away and removing his hand. “Stay low, all right?”
I archive his advice in my mind. Keeping close to the ground against a larger opponent makes perfect sense.
“All set?” roars Yinha. “Cool. Everyone hit the viewing platform.”
A stampede ensues as the trainees move off in pairs.
“Good. That was a lot quicker than yesterday. Today we’re sparring until one person falls and stays down for more than three seconds. Who’s first?”
“Us!” hollers Jupiter.
“Hmm . . .” Yinha’s face hardens with concern. So she’s not completely callous; pitting the youngest trainee against the biggest one seems to bother her. “Fine—I won’t stop you. I like to see volunteers.”
The seats that Jupiter and I occupy rise up from the rest of the viewing platform, carry us through the air, and lower us into the middle of the empty training-dome floor. When we stand up, the chairs retreat to their original positions.
“Go!” Yinha yells.
Jupiter stampedes toward me, leading with his prism-shaped head. With his bigger mass and higher top speed, he can achieve a greater momentum than me any time of day—and knock me over like a bowling pin in that useless Earthbound game.
Stay low, I repeat to myself, crouching and pivoting on the balls of my feet to face right. Before Jupiter barrels into me, I execute a forward roll and regain my footing immediately.
Jupiter zooms past, slowing with great effort.
“Can’t run forever!” He comes after me again, with heavier feet this time, and stops in front of me, aiming a massive fist at my face. I raise my crossed forearms to block it. The impact jars my bones. He throws more punches at different sections of my upper body and scores a hit on my sternum. Ouch.
Instead of continuing to block his fists, which would only reward me with extra bruises on my forearms, I step back, slowly at first. Jupiter leans farther and farther forward—if I sufficiently shift his center of gravity, he’ll fall.
“Get on the offensive, Stripes!” a boy yells from the stands.
I aim a fist at Jupiter’s stomach. He turns my forearm aside; the collision jars my wrist and elbow. I deliver a vicious kick to his left shinbone, eliciting a yelp of pain, and backpedal away. A collective squeal arises from the female half of the trainees.
Jupiter stalks backward, putting a distance of ten meters between us, and charges again with the speed and certainty of a missile, arms outstretched to prevent a rolling escape on my part.
I should tire him. If I were fighting Wes, with his steely endurance, I’d try something else, but Jupiter looked exhausted by the end of yesterday’s workout and probably won’t last more than ten minutes running.
I shuffle toward him this time, but veer to the right seconds before we collide. He swears on several human anatomical features and pursues me, losing momentum all the while. I run in a circle, leaning my torso inward to gain speed and maintain balance.
But because he’ll eventually attack, I zigzag across the floor at full throttle. Jupiter grunts in frustration, dumbly rotating his head to find me. I sprint behind him and knee him in the groin, which elicits another roar, this time of pain.
The crowd hoots in approval at my dirty trick.
I’ll do what I must.
While Jupiter’s incapacitated, I back up and shoot toward him, planning to push him over. But he swivels around, grabs my arms, and throws me down. Before my head hits the floor, I realize that I must have missed his essential organs, and that he’s a better actor than I had supposed.
I land hard. It feels like several of my ribs have swapped places. I also may have bruised my brain.
“Sorry, little birdy.” Jupiter thwacks me on the nose, and I taste iron in the blood trickling into my mouth. Fighting to stay conscious, I watch his black boot press into my chest.
“And that’s three seconds,” announces Yinha. “The victor is Jupiter Alpha!”
I hear a few lonely shouts of approbation before blacking out.
8
I OPEN MY EYES TO BEHOLD WHITE everywhere. Spots of color float above me; I blink, and the dots unify into one blob, which materializes into Eri’s face. Vinasa loiters by the door; she approaches when she notices that I’ve woken up.
“Hey,” Eri mumbles through a yawn. “Thanks so much for helping Wes earlier. . . . That was real brave.”
It wasn’t brave as much as stupid, but it’s earned me respect—if not fondness—from Eri. I’d underestimated the depth of her puzzling infatuation with Copper Head.
“Yeah, and it landed her here in the Medical quarters.” Vinasa turns to me, extending a hand.
I extend my hand too, touching her handscreen with the pad of my thumb so that it can register my identity.
“Phaet. That means ‘dove,’ right? Associated with peace throughout Western Earthbound culture. Don’t know how much that name’s going to help you here.” Vinasa looks at my stats once more, and her mouth forms a little O of surprise. “You’re . . . you’re only fifteen? I knew you were young, because you weren’t in our Primary class, but . . . wow. I’m not saying you can’t get through training, though. Some of the nonaligned f
loating cities—Dakota and Benthos, specifically—have used child pirates for centuries, and they’re really fierce.”
Vinasa’s breadth of knowledge takes me by surprise—like Ariel, she has a mind structured more like a database than a calculator.
“Vin’s big on History; she’ll work there first chance she gets.” Eri smiles sadly at her friend. “If there are any spots left.”
“You heard the Committee cut another fifth of the department last month?” Vinasa pouts. The Committee only pays big money for what’s essential to the Bases’ survival: administrative essentials, as well as scientific discovery and innovation. “Journalism and Visual Design are having the same problem. My dad thinks a nonscience Specialization is a ticket to Shelter, only the ride’s longer.”
“There’s still time to change your mind, Vin.” Eri looks at her handscreen, frowning. “Canopus says we have to leave by 18:00.”
How long have I been unconscious? It’s 17:56. Seeing the worried look on my face, Eri says, “You weren’t out for too long. Everyone else is having dinner. I brought you some!” She shoves two slices of stale brown bread at me. I peel them apart to check for anything suspicious. Between them are four slices of lab-grown chicken egg with crumbling grayish yolks. There’s also an apple, some water, and a few dietary supplement pills.
“Thanks.” I gratefully bite into the bread. “Have you eaten?”
“Yeah, we did,” Vinasa says. “Very quickly. Set new records, I think, but the Militia doesn’t track stuff like that.” A smile darts across her face. “The rest of the matches weren’t as entertaining as yours. Nash scratched me on the cheek.”
“But the Medics fixed Vin in a minute!” Eri says. “And Wes beat Ganymede Zeta with your knee-in-the-manly-areas idea.”
Ganymede is one of Jupiter’s meatier cronies, with a shaved head and a skinny snake tongue.
Eri sighs. “Callisto gave Jupiter crap for beating up a girl—don’t know why she puts up with him.”
“Callisto?”
“Jupiter’s girlfriend, the one with the pimples. They fight a ton.”
I’ve seen the girl hanging off his arm—her face, though finely formed, is cratered with acne scars like the moon of her namesake. Her hair has stripes like mine, brown and yellow rather than black and silver.
“Oh—Wes came in here about an ankle sprain that turned out to be nothing,” Vinasa says, eliciting a frown from Eri. “He hung around and asked us if you were okay.”
I stop chewing and gawk at her.
“Probably wanted to congratulate you on nearly sterilizing Jupiter,” Eri says defensively. “Those two never liked each other. Wes transferred from Base I when we were all fifteen, ’cause our Medical Department had a better job opening. He had to apply for a transfer permit and everything. Well, Jupiter ignored Wes until he saw him run in conditioning class, then tried to pick on him, but Wes almost kicked Jupiter’s teeth out. Since then, Jupiter’s steered clear of him . . . until today.”
People rarely relocate from one base to another—I suspect that the Committee tries to thwart interaction among the bases so that trouble on one doesn’t slither into the other five. If the other bases didn’t appear in our news reports and history texts, we’d risk forgetting they exist. As the first transfer I’ve ever met, Wes might as well be an alien.
“You sure Wes transferred for a job?”
“It’s all he ever told anyone.”
I’m down to the calcium pills, which I swallow without the aid of water.
“How you feeling?” Eri gives my hand a squeeze.
“Better.” My vision blurs again, and my eyelids threaten to fall of their own accord. The food had a sedative in it, maybe melatonin.
“It’s nice that they give us the nights off,” Vinasa says. “Why don’t you take a nap? It’s still early, but we should get some sleep ourselves.”
Before I can respond, everything dissolves again.
I wake to a dark world, energized. If every object weren’t in such sharp focus, and if my bladder weren’t so uncomfortably stretched, I’d believe this was a dream.
After using the toilet, I tiptoe through the empty hallways and find a domain of wonders—no security pods in sight. Curiosity about the Medical facilities takes over, and because curfew doesn’t go into effect for another twenty minutes, I decide to explore.
The hall is devoid of Medics and patients alike. Because we haven’t fought real battles in so long, fewer active Militia members are getting hurt. Most Medics are in the civilian Medical Department, contending with a recent bout of influenza that has afflicted a good part of Sanitation. Those moles get sick a lot.
Before I get to the end of the hall, footfalls approach. They’re too frequent to be the echoes of my own. Sudden dread seizes me—what if it’s someone who will tattle to one of the instructors and guarantee me negative points before the first evaluation? If that happens, I won’t be able to pay Mom’s Medical bill; the prize money of a low-ranking trainee can’t even buy her a maintenance robot to keep her company. I press myself against the wall, heart pounding, as a shadow sprints around the bend.
“Hello?” calls a male voice.
He approaches. The emergency lights on the floor illuminate copper-wire hair.
He shouldn’t be here. He’s not in recovery; he’s nothing but an overly ambitious trainee—oh, Medical assistant. That’s how he broke in.
“Stripes? What are you doing out of bed?”
My right toes cross over my left foot, and I pivot to face the way I came. My bare feet carry me away from him.
“I don’t feel that I thanked you enough today—won’t you come back?”
Considering his speed and strength, it may be useful to put my distaste aside to observe and analyze his training methods. I pivot again and walk until I’m close to him—but not too close. The fingers of my right hand itch to wrap around my handscreen; his forearms twitch as well, because this upcoming conversation may hint at sensitive matters. Blocking one’s handscreen is a gesture of trust; it communicates to the other person: let’s keep this between us, and no one else.
There are few people I distrust more.
As we size each other up, I try to appear as alert as he does. When I stand my straightest, I’m exactly his height. He holds out a hand for me to shake, which is polite but unnecessary, because he’s been to my home and probably knows my name. Though his palm is calloused like the bark of a sapling, the contact is gentle. Mom says that soft handshakes indicate soft personalities, which I’m good at dealing with, but I still don’t like him.
Moments later, my handscreen reads “Wezn Kappa,” followed by his stats, which I examine for my own safety. He has an above-average IQ and zero policy infractions; his mother and father reside on Base I, apart from him. Fittingly for a Medical assistant, he has blood type O negative, the universal donor—but it would mean more if the practice of donating blood still existed. We manufacture the stuff by the liter now.
Looking down at my information, he says, “Nice to meet you again, Phaet.” Again, his slow, deliberate speech pattern catches my attention. Maybe they speak differently on Base I. “You took some blows for me today—even though there was no need. Much appreciated.” He rocks awkwardly back and forth on his heels. “I thought, er, it was only polite to learn more about you.”
I want to know what he’s doing here. I question him with a raised eyebrow and a jerk of my head down the hallway.
“Oh, just running. It’s not curfew yet . . . I should be fine.”
Perhaps he doesn’t see me as a threat to his supremacy, even after viewing my academic stats. Wes wears a neutral, if not pleasant, expression—although he seems averse to looking me in the face.
He’s your competition, my prudent side reminds me. And he took your mother.
But why not learn something from the most capable of the fifty of us, despite my unhappy associations with him? With Wes’s old job in Medical, and the wide-ranging contacts he must have
in other departments, he could find out how Mom is doing—if I ever become comfortable asking him for favors.
“I should’ve fought Jupiter. . . . He has no mercy—bludgeoning someone half his mass.” Even though his eyebrows are knit in consternation, Wes doesn’t raise his voice above a murmur. Maybe he does want to keep this chat from prying ears. “Stay away from him—please?”
Nod.
“You’re a talkative girl.” While examining something on the spotless floor, he dimly smiles, a passive expression that doesn’t involve parting his lips. I don’t see the point, because it’s like switching on a neon lamp and throwing a cotton sheet over it.
“Well. I’m going to keep running—please don’t tell anyone. Thanks again for earlier and, er, see you tomorrow!” He sets off at a pace that would induce cramps in anyone else.
As that dim smile fades from my mind, I decide to keep him close. He could help me get what I need.
9
DAYS PASS, EACH FILLED WITH UNFORGIVING exercises with torture devices ranging from jump ropes to the climbing wall. While many trainees don’t finish the assigned workouts, I try too hard and sometimes end up on the floor because of my clumsiness. Eri continually complains about blisters on her feet. My own muscles smart every time I move, but I know the tears in the tissue will soon heal and increase my strength. On days when we run less than two kilometers, I jog around the training center after Yinha dismisses us, hoping that Cygnus and Anka are sleeping soundly and growing tougher along with me.
Although I miss home, I’m no longer lonely. After a few days and nights sleeping near my new acquaintances, I feel I’m better integrated into the group, though Nash still tries to ignore the fact. Slowly, I learn how to socialize with three people at once—and female ones to boot.
One day at lunch, I catch Vinasa staring in my direction. Not into my eyes, but at the top of my head. “I wish I had your hair, Phaet. Mine’s such a wild mess! It’s so thick, I can’t hold it all in one hand.”
