Dove Arising (20 page)

Eri sits down with us on the viewing platform and embraces me in turn. Unlike Nash, she has grown more serious since the third evaluation.

“We visited you,” Nash says. “Actually, half the trainees tried to visit you. But Canopus kicked us out. He said you had major recovering to do.”

“Speaking of that,” Eri says, “you should sleep in my cot tonight, so Jupiter and Callisto don’t get you. Orion says Wes switches off with him and some other people. We should at least
try
—I don’t mind.”

“But Callisto might . . .” I’m grateful for their hospitality but worried for their welfare.

Eri grimaces. “I think we should protect each other.”

Protect me—by putting herself at risk. However, it would be idiotic to keep sleeping in my usual cot, and I remind myself of my purpose in Militia now: to come out on top, because my family deserves to be together again. “If you insist.”

Yinha’s voice fills the room. “We’ll continue our field training now. Trust the instructions from your headset. Get it? Cool.”

Recorded commands play from our helmet speakers. Today, training involves excessive physical activity and little thinking. We follow every word in every sentence—at least, we’re supposed to.

The training area has been altered to resemble Earth, complete with plastic-smelling trees and a squashy floor imitating mud. Even the dome’s ceiling has changed from white to a sickly green-gray, mimicking the polluted sky. Each of us is weighed down by ten kilograms of equipment and supplies on our backs: jackets, heavy all-purpose helmets, weapons in our belts, and ballistic shields. I feel like one of the pack animals used by the ancient Earthbound.

A crackly voice commands me to take cover behind this tree or set up a grenade under that rock. Sometimes the orders are more complex: set up a lethal trip wire between two points in a group of three or guard the southwest corner of a hexagonal building while other unit members infiltrate the interior.

Though I’m fatigued, I pass the night sleeplessly in Eri’s cot. It smells like her, spicy and sugary, but
off
—a constant reminder that up on my cot, her snoring form is exposed to danger. Thankfully, nothing stirs in the darkness.

The training area is still disguised as an Earth forest when we return for more soreness the following morning.

Yinha strides in. “Yesterday, many of you were dragging your feet. Were you
tired
? We’re going to take care of that today. Have fun jogging with all your equipment. Five kilometers. Let’s go.”

Although all the other trainees groan, I don’t let myself join them. This reminds me of the first week, when we ran in circles around the perimeter of the dome, but this time, rocks and roots bar our way, gusts of air blow from the walls to slow us, and kilograms of equipment weigh us down. I watch my feet constantly to avoid tripping. Soon, a pattern in the obstacles emerges: two low roots, a high root, a rock, a mid-sized root, an overhanging vine, and two low roots again. I break away from the horde of trainees and set a steady pace behind Wes, who, as usual, overachieves in front.

“Hello, Stripes,” he says without turning.

How civil he acts, considering we haven’t talked in two days! There’s something different about him now that he considers me a real threat to his standing.

“Good morning.” I tail him, letting his bigger body block the directed airflow so that my own running is easier.

“Are you upset by what I said?” He gets right to the point. “I was being inconsiderate—please forgive me.”

There he goes with the apologies. Remembering Mom’s pink skin the day everything began, I pound my simmering frustration into the ground, causing my strides to lengthen. Good, I’ve made practical use of my emotions.

“My family needs the prize money too. I wish I could change the situation so that this . . . pettiness . . . wouldn’t come between us—”

“You can’t.”

He must come from poor stock as well. He had to take a small job as a department assistant, like I did. But how did he find time to practice running, fighting, and shooting? Who taught him those skills? The best explanation is that his parents are low-ranking Militia officials, but in that case they would still get decent pay, rendering the financial motive implausible. Also, if Murray is his only sibling and has a job of her own, no one is dependent on him. I wish I could find out more about his family, but my handscreen won’t provide information on citizens who don’t reside on Base IV.

Nothing makes sense. I dislike thinking in circles even more than jogging in circles.

“Phaet, will you please run next to me? I want to see you.”

Sighing, I comply.

“I promise I will explain it all when I can.” So there is something else. “We should meet back at the Medical quarters tonight. At the least, we can stay in the top two.”

“Fine.”

Matching our strides, Wes and I pass the slowest trainees, who have shamelessly resorted to walking. Eri whoops as we race past her, but I barely notice.

My instincts are funny. The first time I set eyes on Wes, I didn’t like him. Something within me knew to beware those cold, shiny eyes.

That night, I fight with Wes as never before, testing my limits and his. We’re sore from the day’s labor, but our movements build to a frenzy, an ephemeral kaleidoscope of limbs. He doesn’t call out suggestions anymore, needing to concentrate wholly on our duel. My fists fire like tiny sparks at his face and torso; my feet whip out in attempts to trip him.

He hooks a foot behind mine and pulls my heel from under me, the same tactic I used against Io Beta in the first evaluation. Before I fall onto my back, I throw all my weight into a punch aimed at his chest, which he deflects with his shoulder. His fingers capture my wrist; he pulls me in and hooks his elbow behind my neck.

“Gotcha.” His breath tickles my ear; his sticky cheek presses against my forehead.

Inexplicably, his arm around me slackens—as does his focus. Wes
never
loses focus.

Out of concern rather than malice, I punch him in the gut. I feel a sour surge of satisfaction before his torso collapses inward, curling around itself like a withered stem. He anticlimactically plants his rear on the floor.

I retract my guilty hands and join him. “Sorry.”

“I’ll recover soon enough.” His voice catches on a few syllables as if he’s hurt. But he’s emitting some kind of mirthless laughter. “You absolutely amaze me.”

I inch away. Part of me had prepared for a surprise resumption of our match. “What?”

“You heard me.” Wes draws himself up and raises a flat hand perpendicular to the ground. Is he going to hit me? I’ve never encountered this peculiar gesture.

“This is what you do—we call it a high five. Raise your hand like this. Exactly.”

He slaps my hand, stinging it a bit, but it makes me feel accomplished. Victorious.

“Not so hard, is it?” he says between laughs. When he’s this agreeable, it’s hard to stay upset with him.

I glower at my hand in puzzlement. “So that gesture of goodwill was for socking you in the stomach.”

“In essence, yes.” Wes’s face turns serious again. “Please don’t be upset with me anymore, Phaet. We’ve helped each other so much.”

It’s true, at least in part. Wes has raised my ranking by more than a dozen places and turned me into a carbon-based fighting machine. “Besides the Jupiter debacle, how have I ever helped
you
?”

“You let me beat you nearly to a pulp on multiple occasions.”

I almost laugh.

Wes tousles his hair, searching the air around us for adequate words. “All joking aside, remember how I said I’d never really found a friend in the world?”

I do.

“You might not consider me one. Not like Umbriel. But you’re like the little sister I never had. You showed me what real companionship could be. . . . No matter how unlikely it seemed that we’d get along.”

He called me his first friend, a little sister. An Anka of his own, as if he and I share a multitude of lovely things from childhood memories to specific sequences in our DNA. I’m not sure why, then, I feel incomplete, or what else I expected to hear.

“Come on, ready for another go?” he says.

Though my muscles burn and my back is dotted with spots of soreness, I get up. Our conversation has exhausted me as much as the workout; I put my hands on my lower back, rolling my head from side to side. My neck makes loud cracking noises.

“You all right?”

I return his previous frankness. “Sore.”

We trade blows for a minute or so, but when I reach around for a right jab, pain shoots from my shoulder down my arm and through my fist.
Weak
, I think as he grabs my hand and forces it down.

He drops the fighting stance. “I don’t think you’re actually all right. Want me to take a look?”

I vigorously shake my head.

“It’ll take a minute at most. You see, carrying heavy packs tends to strain the lumbar vertebrae and the shoulders, especially in women.”

I narrow my eyes but note that he indirectly called me a
woman
—not a girl, not some imaginary little sister.

“Well—the sexes are equally valuable, yes, but their bodies are built quite differently. Not that differences shouldn’t be embraced.”

“Whatever.” Now I sound like Anka.

“Er—you’ll need to be still.” Delicate fingers probe the grooves between my back muscles through my shirt. Several times I jerk, either because a nerve fires with pain or because chilly goose bumps rise on my arms.

“Knots everywhere, or as Medical calls them, myofascial trigger points. After overuse, the muscle stays permanently flexed and causes lactic acid buildup. It’s not too hard to remove them with massage. Er—perhaps lie down on your stomach?”

After I do as he says, Wes sits down beside me. His cool hands roam my upper back; I suddenly feel too warm and wonder if my shirt is damp from sweat.

“Ow,” I carp when he pinches the flesh over my left shoulder blade. It feels like he’s picking up the muscle and dropping it somewhere else. But after he lets go, I feel relief.

“Oops.” Wes pats the area. “I should have mentioned that targeted massage can be quite painful.”

He pinches again and again. Soon I’m squirming when it hurts and giggling when it tickles. “This isn’t massage; this is you rearranging my back.”

“I could rearrange your neurons too, if you’d like.” He taps the back of my skull with his knuckles.

“You probably just killed fifty of them.”

“Kid like you has a few to spare.” There he goes with the compliments, but . . . “kid,” yet again.

I stay silent and still for the remainder of my “treatment.” Wes takes a while to finish both sides; my back feels looser but I’m still too warm.

“Thanks for being a good patient—minus the initial squirming. Would you like to walk back to the barracks now?”

Unlike the other nights, Wes wants to come with me. I could argue against his offer in a number of ways—he could get in trouble for going near the girls’ cots, people would say nasty things about us, it would take longer for him to get to the boys’ half of the room—but my tongue sticks to the floor of my mouth.

Wes’s company provides protection, but the twinge of guilt in my gut won’t leave. Had Umbriel stolen into the Medical quarters and lurked in the darkness, he would have accused me of fraternizing with my competition.

And when I lie in Eri’s cot, again losing a battle with insomnia, I see Umbriel kneading his brows in disapproval as clearly as if he were imprinted on the back of my eyelids.

23

THE TENSION AMONG THE TRAINEES stretches to a breaking point as the last evaluation approaches. Jupiter lands Orion in the Medical quarters after “accidentally” positioning a trip wire near his feet. Paranoia sets in. I never wander around after lights-out without wearing Wes’s infrared glasses. Nash and Eri chatter about their concern that life as a soldier will be even tougher than life as a trainee. I disagree—by then, I’ll know my placement and will be freer to visit what’s left of my family.

After the night he redistributed my back muscles, Wes and I get along admirably, preferring to compete as a team rather than as enemies. If we can beat the other forty-eight, the top two spots are ours. But I need the money of the first-place trainee, and I want to surpass everyone’s expectations of me—even my own.