“You’re going to be okay, D-12,” he said, but before he could say more, D-05 pushed past him. Her auburn hair flared behind her like a fiery beacon.
She dropped to her knees in front of D-12.
“Hold on, Twelve,” she said, clutching D-12’s hand in her own. She turned her head and glowered at Two, her brown eyes flashing. “How could you let him do this?”
Seriously? She was blaming him?
Before Two could respond, the rev of an engine stole his attention. He turned around, searching for the noise’s source.
A golf cart trundled down the dirt path snaking through the trees. Mr. Wilson sat behind the wheel, flanked by a tall, white-haired man in a black peacoat.
The crowd parted around the cart as it approached. Two stepped away from D-12 and lowered his gaze. He stared at the line of blood inching through the dirt. Only as his fingers tightened into fists did he realize that he was still clenching the other team’s flag. He allowed it to drop to the ground.
It meant nothing to him now.
As Mr. Wilson parked the cart, D-05 rose to her feet and backed up, gathering her hair away from her face. Her hand strayed to the bandana tied around her left wrist. She picked at the loose end restlessly, smearing dirt and fresh blood across the strip of blue fabric.
“Leader,” Two said, lifting his arm in a salute, just as he had been taught. After a brief hesitation, the other teens followed his example.
“How did this happen?” the Leader asked, stepping down from the vehicle. He had a cruel face whose lower half was split through with a deeply-cleft chin and philtrum groove.
Nobody responded. A few of the teens shifted from foot to foot. The rest stared at the ground, unwilling to meet the Leader’s gaze. Two lowered his arm last of all.
“I was told that D-12 fell from a tree, sir,” he said when he realized that no one else was going to speak. Even though he hadn’t witnessed the accident, he felt obligated to answer. After all, he was D-12’s commander, so in a way, he was responsible for the other boy’s well-being.
As the Leader stopped next to him, Two’s nose wrinkled at the smell of burnt cloves and tobacco. He disliked the odor of the Leader’s cigarettes but had been in the man’s company often enough to expect it. That smell was as much a part of his childhood as the scents of mess hall food, pine trees, and spent gunpowder. However, unlike those other familiar fragrances, he drew no comfort from the cigarettes’ characteristic odor, just unease.
Being in the Leader’s presence made him anxious in general and always had. The Leader had never done anything to him, and indeed had praised him on more than one occasion, but there was just something about the man that implanted a deep foreboding in his gut. An air of frigidity surrounded the Leader, and it never went away.
“You were told.” The condescension in the Leader’s voice was almost as strong as his thick accent. He regarded the rest of the teens, his sinewy lips flexing in a flat, mirthless smile. “Who actually saw this happen?”
Several of Two’s teammates shuffled forward, mumbling amongst themselves.
“He wanted to get a better view of the other team’s formation, but then the branch broke,” a girl said. The sunlight glinted off her face mask’s clear visor, but failed to hide the way her eyes darted around the circle of teens, never focusing on one face for too long. The other subjects were similarly fidgety.
“I brought him over here,” C-14 said, shrinking away when the Leader’s eyes landed on him. Normally a proud, arrogant boy, he now quailed, hunching his shoulders and bowing his head in a submissive display.
“He needs a doctor!” D-05 said, earning a glance from the Leader that was cold enough to chill the marrow in Two’s bones.
“Don’t speak unless spoken to, Subject Five of Subset D,” the Leader said quietly. “If you have nothing of value to contribute, you will stay silent until I tell you otherwise.”
In the corner of his eye, Two saw D-05 back up to the edge of the crowd. She bit her lip, looking downward. Her hair fell in a veil over her face, and the freckles on her cheeks stood out against her fair skin like specks of dried blood.
She was a pretty girl, but not like Nine. Nine was perfection, the ideal subject—flaxen-haired, blue-eyed. All his.
“Can you hear me, Subject Twelve?” the Leader asked, turning his attention to D-12.
“Can’t move,” D-12 said, his voice thickened by blood. Ruddy saliva bubbled down the side of his face, and his hand flapped uselessly against the branch that impaled him. His camouflage shirt was now more red than green. As the fabric became saturated, Two watched its pattern change before his eyes, until it resembled rotten meat instead of natural foliage.
“Should I call for the doctor?” Mr. Wilson asked the Leader.
“Just wait one moment, Alex.” The Leader nudged D-12’s leg with one pointy-toed boot, then stepped down on the boy’s ankle. “Can you feel this?”
“No,” D-12 moaned.
“What about now?” the Leader asked and applied more pressure, leaning forward so that he was resting his entire body weight upon D-12’s limb.
Filled with morbid curiosity, Two listened for the snap of broken bone, but didn’t hear it.
“I can’t move them. Leader, please save me. I think I’m dying.”
“We have no use for cripples,” the Leader said, removing his foot. He sighed, turning to Mr. Wilson. “But this is a valuable learning experience for the rest of the children. Give me your gun.”
“No,” D-12 said, tears rolling down his dirty cheeks. “Don’t. Please, don’t.”
Mr. Wilson’s face firmed, and his jaw worked silently. He looked down at D-12, and then reached into his jacket, pulling out a revolver from his shoulder rig. As he gave the gun to the Leader, the sunlight danced across the silver barrel, searing a bright after-image into Two’s eyes.
D-05 choked on a sob and pressed a hand against her mouth. Other teens trembled or looked away.
D-12 tried to scream, and instead only began to gag. Blood splattered across the dirt, flung from his lips by the force of his hacking coughs. The branch must have punctured one of his lungs.
Two averted his gaze, turning his attention to the obstacle courses and rappelling wall that he saw through the trees. Strung between wooden columns, the high ropes course resembled the vandalized remains of a hangman’s mass scaffold. Someplace where many corpses had once dangled.
Movement in the corner of his eye drew his gaze down again.
The Leader turned to him. His smile cut cruel lines into his face. “You’re his team’s leader, aren’t you?”
“Yes, sir.” His words left him in a breathless gasp. “Subject Two of Subset A, at your command.”
“He was injured under your care.” The Leader extended the gun to him. “You should be the one to euthanize him.”
Two’s body grew rigid with shock. Whereas moments before his tongue had felt as dry as leather, now saliva flooded his mouth.
“Well?” the Leader asked.
He reached for the revolver, but hesitated just before his fingers could close around the handle.
He couldn’t do it. He had learned how to shoot real firearms from the moment he could handle their recoil, but it was one thing to practice on paper targets or even small game and another to execute a moaning boy in cold blood. At least with the animals he had shot at his instructors’ commands, their bodies had gone to some use, ending up in chili and stews.
That was hunting. This was murder.
As he slowly lowered his hand, the Leader looked at him with ice-gray eyes, his smile as tight as a garrote.
“You disappoint me.”
The Leader pointed the revolver at D-12’s head and pulled the trigger. In the silence of the glade, the gunshot was deafening and echoed in Two’s ears long after the initial noise had faded.
He stared into the shattered face of the silent thing that had once been a boy. His heart slammed against his rib cage in slow, heavy beats, e
ach as forceful as a truncheon blow. Goose bumps rose on his back and upper arms, and an uncontrollable shiver racked his body. A tinny ringing filled his ears like a distant air-raid siren. He could no longer feel the sun’s heat, and he half believed that he would never feel it again.
He had seen people die before, but only on a television screen. As part of his training, he had watched many videos depicting wartime injuries and savage murders. Men being blown to bits by landmines or beheaded by masked insurgents. Women and children, gunned down like cattle.
He knew that humans were so incredibly fragile, but he had trouble reconciling his knowledge with the gory truth of what now lay before him.
For the first time in his life, he became hyperaware of his own mortality. How could people be alive and sobbing one moment and dead the next? How could it end in a single instant as if they were nothing more than animals? Weren’t subjects like himself meant to be genetically superior?
If the Leader could execute D-12 without even attempting to save him, then what was Two’s own worth?
“Euthanasia,” the Leader said, looked around at the stunned, pale faces, and then handed Mr. Wilson the revolver.
Case Notes 2: Subject Nine of Subset A
Half a mile away, Subject Nine of Subset A engaged in a battle of her own, with her voice and her intellect being her only weapons.
“Subjects who shirk their duties need to be punished,” she said, facing the front of the class. “Without discipline, there is no order. That is why I’m proposing a rations system based on our grades. Subjects with good scores will receive more food than subjects with poor ones.”
“I d-d-disagree,” her opponent stammered. “I think all subjects should r-receive the same amount of food, regardless of their scores.”
She personally agreed with him, but that wasn’t the purpose of the debate. Her moral position had been given to her, and now she must play devil’s advocate.
She smiled and squared her shoulders, maintaining an air of confidence even as sweat beaded on the nape of her neck. “Figures. I always knew you were a freeloader, C-03.”
“I’m not a f-f-freeloader!”
“Tell me, why shouldn’t high achievers be rewarded for their hard work, when they’re contributing far more than some of their peers?”
As C-03 groped for an answer, the clock on Mr. Brent’s desk buzzed once.
“That’s it for today,” Mr. Brent said, turning off the alarm. “A-09, good work as always. C-03, how many times do I have to tell you? Don’t stutter.”
The moment Nine was dismissed from her debate class, she followed the flow of subjects out to the mess hall. Located in the center of the main building’s ground floor, the mess hall was a massive room filled with folding lunch tables that sat on wheeled legs. A meaty odor hung in the air, mingling with the scents of floor wax, dirty dishwater, and cooked food.
Positioned in key points throughout the mess hall, steel support posts rose to the high ceiling. Several of the poles were wired with security cameras or lights, while the pole in the center of the room served a different purpose altogether.
A pair of handcuffs had been welded to that column, transforming it into an instrument of public humiliation. It wasn’t uncommon for subjects to be restrained there as punishment for minor offenses, forced to stand for hours at a time. Worse crimes warranted a thrashing, then exhibition.
Nine had never been punished and intended to keep it that way. She never wanted to find out what it felt like to be struck with a switch.
“Nice w-work back there,” C-03 said, catching up to her. His stutter had receded somewhat now that he wasn’t forced to stand in front of the class.
“You did well, too. I’m sorry that I called you a freeloader.”
“Do you think they’ll start revoking food privileges for p-poor grades?”
“I hope not,” she said, laughing.
She was at the top of her class, but she wasn’t about to brag to C-03 about that. He was a shy boy, in spite of his enrollment as a corporate subject. Whenever he took part in a debate or lecture, he stammered and sweated, losing points. Like political subjects, or pols, cors were supposed to speak clearly and concisely. Earlier this morning, in their economics class, his uncontrollable stuttering had earned him several hard whacks across the palms with a ruler.
Her smile faded as she glanced down at the welts on C-03’s hands. Even though their economics class had ended two hours ago, the marks were still raised and livid. By tomorrow morning, his skin would be marbled with bruises.
She felt bad for him, but knew punishment was a necessary part of their schooling. Otherwise, how would subjects learn to behave?
“Why don’t you come eat with me?” Nine asked, aware that he had few friends even within his own subset.
“Really?” he asked, widening his eyes. A blush colored his cheeks at her offer.
“Yeah.” She smiled. “Two should be back from his game now, so we can all sit together. He’s a mil, but I think you’ll like him.”
C-03’s tomato-red complexion curdled into the color of spoiled milk, and when he spoke again, his stutter had come back with a vengeance: “You m-m-mean A-02? Thanks, but I’ll p-p-pass.”
Nine sighed, watching C-03 hurry off. Ever since Two had beaten up a pol who had insulted her, he had effectively ruined her chances of developing new friendships with boys. At the time, she had felt flattered by his protectiveness, but now she looked back at the situation with slight annoyance. He could be so rash sometimes, quick to attack people he perceived as threats. Maybe his military training was making him paranoid.
Wondering how his wargame had gone, she went up to the lunch counter. It was Subset B’s day to cook and serve, and an assembly line of teens doled out food. She groaned at the sight of her meal: meatloaf and mashed potatoes, with a side of canned peas that looked more gray than green. Even the dessert was depressing. The kitchen must have run out of chocolate chips, because the cookies were studded with raisins. Or rat turds. It was difficult to tell.
Calorically and nutritionally, the meal was perfect. Taste-wise, it left much to be desired. She could never understand how the meatloaf was one of Two’s favorites. She thought he must have a stomach made out of steel, or at the very least a severe lack of taste buds.
After being handed her tray, Nine scanned the rows of seated subjects, searching for a hint of ink-black hair against the sea of brown and blond. Everyone wore the same shapeless, black uniform, making it difficult to pick out any single person from the crowd, but Two’s coloring distinguished him.
Just as she began to wonder if he hadn’t returned yet, she spotted him in the corner of the mess hall, far from his usual seat. Smiling, she walked over to him.
He didn’t look up as she sat down across from him, just prodded at his slice of meatloaf like he expected it to crawl off his plate. His cookies lay untouched next to his milk glass, which immediately struck her as odd. Normally, he ate his dessert first, then sweet-talked her into sharing hers.
He had been her first crush. Growing up, she had been drawn to his ethereal beauty, mesmerized by the sharp contrast between his milky skin and dark hair. She could study his features for hours, losing herself in the shadows cast by his high cheekbones, his striking blue eyes, and the delicate, sweeping curve of his lips.
Now, as he looked up at her, his features hardened with an emotion she didn’t have a name for. The bright fluorescent rods overhead illuminated half his face, while shadows caressed the rest.
“Hello, Nine.” He spoke with a smoky resonance refined through years of speech lessons. Like her, he had been taught how to adopt different accents and express false emotions through inflection. Now that his voice had stopped cracking, she could fully appreciate his low, rolling timbre.
“Hey there, soldier,” she said, earning a hint of a smile from him.
“How did your debate go?” he asked, resting his chin in his hand.
“It was a hard topic, bu
t I think I did a good job defending it.”
“Oh good. I knew you would.”
She wondered if he had lost his wargame. Maybe that explained his gloomy mood. Whenever he got a poor grade that he thought he didn’t deserve, he seethed in resentment for days.
“How was your battle?” she asked, knowing that it amused him when she called it that.
“We won.” He sighed, dropping his hand from his face. “Except one of the boys on my team got hurt today.”
“Which subset is he in?”
“D,” he said, strumming his finger against the fork’s tines.
“Well, is he okay?”
“It doesn’t matter now,” Two said, stabbing his meatloaf. He scooped out a forkful and shoveled it into his mouth, chewing rhythmically. “We won. That’s all that matters.”
Nine sighed, watching him eat. Ever since he had started attending those special movie nights she wasn’t allowed to go to, he had become colder and more reserved. She wished that his aptitude tests had shown an affinity for politics only, not military tactics and logistics. The thought of his future—surely far bloodier than her own—worried her. She feared that once they left the Academy, their paths would lead them far away from each other.
In a way, their futures had already been decided for them. She would attend Harvard or one of the other schools she had read about. He would go to West Point or enlist in the military as a high school graduate with a forged diploma and a fake name. That was the Leader’s plan, but what if she and Two never met up again? What if violence claimed him?
As if sensing her sudden unease, he glanced up at her and narrowed his eyes. His irises were the color of the flames on the mess hall’s gas ranges—an intense, smoldering blue that appeared violet in certain lights. Now they seemed to flash with a fiery heat.
“Where did you get that bracelet?” he asked.
She glanced down at her wrist, where the sleeve of her shirt partially hid a pretty copper bangle. It was the only piece of jewelry she owned, and unlike the wristwatch that he had earned after his team’s first victory, she had done nothing to deserve it.
Hades Rising Page 2
