Exposure (The Fringe Book 2)

by Tarah Benner

  He sighs. “I’m sorry. I should have realized how scared you’d be this week. I should have been . . . nicer to you.”

  “It’s okay. It’s not just this. I . . . I’m worried about Celdon. He’s on surge now . . . acting completely psycho . . . and I don’t know what to do.”

  “Yeah.” Eli grimaces. “I saw you guys in the canteen. Nice takedown, by the way.”

  I raise an eyebrow.

  “He’ll be okay. Just focus on getting through the next week.”

  Those words make me want to throw up. I can’t imagine being out on the Fringe for a whole day, much less an entire week.

  “Do you really think we’re going to make it that long?”

  My question is barely audible, but I know he heard it. His hands tighten on my arms, and I suddenly wish I could see his expression.

  “You can’t think about that,” he says gruffly.

  “How do you not?”

  He’s silent for so long I think I must have made him angry. But when he finally speaks, his voice is low and scared. “I just can’t.”

  Maybe I’m imagining it, but it seems as though he’s moved closer to me. I can feel the warmth of his breath on my face and sense the rise and fall of his chest.

  Purely on instinct, I tilt my chin up toward his face.

  Then his hands are gone, and I hear him backing up.

  He clears his throat. “Everything will be fine, Harper. Just get some sleep tonight. Tomorrow we’ll have our briefing, and then . . .”

  “Yeah.”

  “Don’t drink too much.”

  “Got it,” I say, trying to keep the disappointment out of my voice.

  Typical Eli — backing away when it gets too personal. That’s how it’s been ever since I’ve known him.

  After my panic attack and those stolen minutes with Eli, the last thing I want to do is return to the party. So I take my jacket and stumble back down the dark tunnel alone, truly sad for the first time that my days in Recon may be numbered.

  three

  Harper

  The next day is a complete blur.

  I wake up early for our briefing with Remy Chaplin and make my way down the deserted tunnel alone. The cadet wing is littered with evidence of last night’s party, and I’m sure all my friends are still sleeping off hangovers.

  When I arrive, Eli’s already sitting in a chair across from the undersecretary. They’re chatting easily as though they’re good friends, but I can tell from Eli’s stiff posture that he isn’t a fan of Remy’s.

  He introduces me without meeting my gaze, and I sink down in front of a three-dimensional projection of the Fringe. It looks pretty harmless in its holographic bubble, but there’s a nasty-looking red area that says otherwise.

  Remy is cold and businesslike as he tells us about a possible drifter stronghold in a town a few miles outside the cleared zone. He speaks with authority, but I can tell he has no idea what’s really going on.

  There will be a gang of drifters in that town — guaranteed — but Eli and I won’t be able to rely on any of the information Jayden provided. I’m sure it’s all part of Constance’s plan.

  I just nod and let Remy’s words wash over me, trying to numb myself to the anger eating away at my insides.

  He gives us a simple mission: to perform drifter “cleanup” on the town and report on their technological capabilities. I try to hold back my scowl when he explains that it will require us to infiltrate their base. By his tone, you’d think he was sending us to the commissary to buy socks, but his meaning is clear: Let’s see what you can discover without getting killed.

  When Remy dismisses us, I take off without a word. Eli follows me into the tunnel, but I quicken my pace.

  “Hey! Riley!” he calls.

  I cringe but pretend not to hear. I don’t want to talk to him until I have to. He probably feels awkward about what happened at the party, and I don’t want to watch him withdraw all over again.

  I lose him in the massive crowd headed to the canteen. But instead of following the other Recon workers to breakfast, I go right back to my compartment.

  I still have training today — Eli in the morning, afternoon, and evening — but I don’t plan on going to that. I don’t have the energy to fight like my life depends on it with the threat of the Fringe looming over me.

  Instead, I revert to my oldest coping mechanism: chipping away at one of my side projects to distract myself. It’s one I haven’t touched since before Bid Day — a slick little application to automatically optimize my intracompound stock portfolio. I’d counted on having a lot of money to invest back then, but now that I make a pittance in Recon, it seems more valuable than ever.

  I get some music playing on my interface and down two Energelz. They’ll give me a massive crash later, which is the only way I’ll get to sleep tonight.

  Nostalgia washes over me as I fall into old habits. I haven’t had a coding marathon since the week before Bid Day, but they were a regular part of my weekend ritual in higher ed.

  There’s something soothing about writing code — the way it sucks me in and leaves no room in my head for anything else. For once, my mind feels sharp and clear. There’s no Eli, no Jayden, and no impending deployment.

  The hours fly by. Besides a short break for lunch, I don’t leave my compartment for the rest of the day.

  At seventeen hundred, a quick knock on my door shatters my awesome flow, and I stagger across the room to open it.

  I’d been expecting Lenny to show up to wish me luck, and my heart sinks when I see Eli standing there with a rucksack slung over his shoulder. He’s wearing an expression he usually reserves for when he’s pissed at me. But as he takes in my outfit — tank top, sweats, messy ponytail — I catch a flicker of amusement in his eyes.

  “You blew off training today.”

  “Sorry,” I say, stepping aside so he can come in. He shouldn’t be hanging around outside my compartment — even if he’s only here to admonish me for skipping. Jayden already thinks there’s something going on between us, and I don’t need any more drama in my life.

  Eli looks taken aback by my apology and follows me inside, towering over my small bed in the cramped space.

  “How are you feeling?” he asks in a low voice.

  That’s a stupid question.

  “Okay.”

  He throws me a skeptical look and makes his way over to my computer, taking in the line of empty Energelz with a disapproving look.

  “You working on something?” he asks.

  “Yeah,” I say, a little more defensively than I meant to. “It’s an app.”

  A look of confusion darts across Eli’s face, and I feel a little bashful as he bends down to examine the lines of code marching across the monitor.

  “It’s for me, okay?”

  He lifts an eyebrow and lets out a long stream of air. “You are too talented to be here, Harper.”

  I tilt my head to look at him, but I’m too worn out for this weird exchange. “Why are you here?”

  “I thought I’d help you pack.”

  I give him a blank stare. This is so unlike him.

  “Nobody ever helped me,” he says, cracking a grin. “I always either packed so much that it weighed me down or not enough and ended up hungry the last two days.”

  He unzips the bag and starts unloading supplies: dehydrated ration packets, a big bag of water with a tube for drinking, new filters for the masks to trap radioactive particles, and ammunition. He even has a tiny first aid kit, a pocketknife, a solar charging station for my interface, and a device I don’t recognize.

  “What’s this?” I ask. The device is made of heavy-duty plastic and has a little screen.

  “Your dosimeter. It measures your exposure to ionizing radiation. You’ll wear it when we go out.”

  I nod and set it back on the bed, trying to ignore the pang of dread in my stomach.

  “You shouldn’t count on the checkpoints being fully stocked,” he says, gra
bbing the rucksack hanging in the back of my closet. “You won’t be able to carry enough water to last more than a day or two, but it’s good to bring as much food as you can.”

  When he emerges from the flurry of clothes clutching one of my uniforms, his eyes linger on the flimsy black dress I wore to the party. He swallows once, and I watch in astonishment as he rolls the uniform into a tight cylinder and arranges the supplies in my rucksack.

  “There,” he says. “That should hold you for a week.”

  “You only pack one uniform?”

  “Trust me. You won’t want the extra weight. Better to be dirty and sweaty than too slow.”

  Too slow. I cringe at the implication of those words. “What about the hazmat suit they gave me?”

  He shakes his head. “No point bringing that. It’s way too hot out there to wear it for more than an hour or two. And it doesn’t block the really damaging radiation anyway. Just wear your mask so you aren’t breathing in any radioactive particles.”

  Sinking down on the bed, the full weight of tomorrow finally hits me. Eli makes a jerky motion, as though he wants to sit down next to me but thinks better of it. The awkward weight of what we’re about to do hangs between us, and he clears his throat and shoves his hands into his pockets. “Get some sleep, okay? And drink plenty of water. We need you hydrated.”

  I nod mutely, wondering when my hydration became a joint concern.

  He grabs his rucksack and heads for the door but stops short, looking conflicted. “Harper?”

  “Yeah?” My voice sounds too high.

  “You’re gonna be okay.” He glances over his shoulder, his eyes burning into mine. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

  I open my mouth to say something, but he clears his throat and leaves before I can get the words out. When the door closes behind him, there’s a light warmth in my chest that’s fighting against my mounting panic.

  I don’t recall changing clothes or setting an alarm on my interface. When I fall back on my bed, the heaviness of fatigue overtakes me, and I quickly succumb to a deathlike sleep.

  I wake up before the morning train comes barreling through the tunnel outside my window. It’s oh-four hundred — two hours before my deployment.

  I run the shower cycle on repeat for several minutes, savoring the feeling of clean, hot water pelting my body for the last time. I change into my fatigues and pull my hair into a tight ponytail, taking extra care with the holster I’ve never used before. There’s a place for ammunition, my handgun, the dosimeter, and other accessories Eli never told me about.

  Despite all our extra training, I feel incredibly unprepared for what I’m about to do. They’re dressing me up to die.

  I down as much water as I can stomach and head up to the canteen with my rucksack over my shoulder. The tunnels are completely deserted, and there are only a handful of guys manning the canteen at this hour.

  Since it’s my deployment day, I get a free breakfast on the compound. It’s nothing like typical Recon fare. The portions are twice the size I usually get, and there’s a perfect hardboiled egg resting next to my oatmeal. I’m sure they think it’s nice to give us a taste of the finer things in life before we head out to the Fringe, but it just seems cruel somehow.

  After I finish, I slowly make my way down the tunnel toward the double set of doors everyone usually avoids. I’ve never even been this far down the wing, but I know I’m in the right place when I see a familiar silhouette against the frosted-glass door.

  Eli has his back to me as he stares out the window. Hearing me approach, he turns, and I see him swallow once to keep his expression neutral.

  It doesn’t work. I can read the fear and dread in those expressive blue eyes and the hard set of his jaw.

  “Did you eat breakfast?” I ask.

  “I had something in my compartment.”

  I nod, cringing inwardly at the awkward silence that falls between us. There’s nothing to say. There are no words for how I’m feeling.

  Eli’s eyes widen as though he just remembered something and reaches around to pull an extra rifle off his shoulder. “This is for you,” he says. “I cleaned it last night. It’s the one you used on the sim course.”

  “Oh,” I say, slightly taken aback. “Thanks.”

  It seems weird to say “thanks” for a gun, but he shrugs and smiles anyway.

  Down the tunnel, quick footsteps echo off the polished floor.

  I turn. Remy Chaplin is striding toward us in his imposing tan suit. I’ve never seen a man achieve such a close shave. His dark skin is so smooth that it gleams, and his jacket and pants are pressed to perfection.

  Jayden is skulking along behind him. Even at oh-six hundred, she looks annoyingly put together. Her hair is swept back in a stylish bun, and she’s wearing a crisp high-collar shirt under her officer’s uniform. I wonder if she sleeps at all or if she’s just a robot that Constance powers down at night to conserve energy.

  Her sharp eyes find mine, and she sneers. She loves having this power over us.

  Remy is completely oblivious to the silent power struggle going on between me and Jayden, but I feel Eli stiffen beside me.

  “Good morning, Lieutenant . . . Cadet Riley.”

  “Good morning,” we echo.

  “We’ve already gone over your objectives for the mission. Do you have everything you need?”

  “Yes, sir,” says Eli.

  “Good. Let’s get on with it, then,” says Remy, clapping his hands together and reading off his interface. “Cadet Riley, are you exiting the compound of your own volition, fully aware of the risks of the Fringe?”

  Eli warned me about this part — the part where I basically give the board permission to send me out to die.

  “I am,” I say in a hollow voice.

  “And do you understand that you are a free agent on the Fringe and that the compound bears no responsibility for any harm that may come to you?”

  “I do.”

  “And do you understand that you are bound by law to reveal whatever you may find wholly and truthfully to your commanding officers — but never discuss your findings with any compound civilians?”

  “I do.”

  “Thank you.”

  He turns to Eli, who rattles off the whole spiel from memory.

  The sick feeling in my stomach intensifies, and I close my eyes to rein in the sudden nausea.

  “Good luck,” says Remy. “Strength as one is strength for all.”

  After we salute, I glance up at Eli’s face. The easy smile he had for me just moments ago is gone, and I’m shocked by the severe expression that’s replaced it. It’s not anger I’m detecting; it’s fear.

  Remy cuts between us and punches a nine-digit code into the keypad behind me. There’s a beep and a slight hiss, and the doors retract to reveal a small entryway with a low ceiling. There are sliding doors on either side leading to the postexposure chambers and a huge set of doors right in front of us leading out into the Fringe.

  A hunched ExCon man in a hazmat suit is already waiting for us. This is all happening too fast.

  Eli steps into the chamber and meets my gaze. I follow his lead and have just enough time to send a withering glare in Jayden’s direction before the doors beep again and shut behind us.

  A red laser passes through the door as it locks, but I can still see the blurred outlines of the commander and undersecretary through the frosted glass.

  I undo the heavy black mask from the clip on my rucksack and pull it down over my face. Eli dons his mask, too, which makes him look like an alien.

  “Brace yourselves,” says the ExCon man. He lifts his bushy eyebrows at Eli, silently daring him with a contemptuous stare. But I’m in no mood for his shit.

  “Let’s just get on with it,” I snap, my own voice playing back to me through the mic on my mask.

  Eli glances in my direction, his expression unreadable.

  The man glares daggers at me before pulling a flimsy paper ma
sk over his mouth and stabbing the keypad with a gnarled finger. I wonder if his only job now is to guard the entrance to the compound. He can’t be older than forty, but he looks like hell after a lifetime of body-deteriorating service on the Fringe.

  As soon as the doors begin to retract, I feel a rush of heat. A gust of warm air blows into the chamber, stirring my hair and making me gasp. I’ve never felt wind before — at least not that I can remember.

  “Ready?” asks Eli, just loud enough for me to hear over my pounding heart.

  I don’t answer him, but somehow my feet start carrying me forward.

  We step outside, and the Fringe unfolds in front of me in all its terrifying glory.

  Barren desert stretches in every direction as far as I can see. The spectrum of color is amazing. From my view inside the compound, I was always struck by how monochromatic the Fringe seemed: burnt orange or brown, depending on the time of day.

  Now it feels as though I’m seeing the desert for the very first time. It’s a vibrant mix of fiery orange, shell pink, deep green, and maroon. The ground is cracked in places, as though the earth is pulling itself apart, and the orangish dirt is punctuated by scrubby little bushes.

  I look up and instantly wish I hadn’t. The pale blue sky is dizzying. I’ve spent plenty of time staring at the sky from the compound, but I’ve never stood directly beneath it, waiting for the atmosphere to swallow me whole.

  Then the heat hits. The warmth that felt almost pleasant in the chamber is suddenly overwhelming. The sun is beating down on my face with terrifying intensity, and when I suck in a breath of dry air, it feels thin and harsh in my lungs. Beads of sweat spring up all over my forehead.

  “Okay?” Eli asks.

  I realize he’s been staring at me this entire time. I must look like an idiot. To him, it’s just another day. I’m sure his lungs are working just fine.

  I force a shaky breath. “Yeah.”

  “We should get moving,” he says in a low, gentle voice. “We have a lot of ground to cover, and it’s going to get hotter.”

  I can’t imagine how that’s possible. I spent my whole life in air-conditioned comfort. I have no experience battling the elements.