Insignia (41 page)

Tom passed a few CamCos. Snowden Gainey of Napoleon Division was practically bouncing in place, and he was talking excitedly to Mason Meekins of Hannibal, who was scowling at the nearest screen. When Tom stepped into the elevator, he saw the news playing on its normally inactive, emergency-only screen. The reporter spoke as the image panned over photographs of various newly revealed CamCos taken from yearbooks, the internet, and other places. One yearbook photo of a bucktoothed girl with glasses and heavy bangs caught him up short. The caption said she was Heather Akron.

When Tom reached his bunk, Vik filled him in on everything people had been talking about for the last hour: the Chinese state news had aired all the identities of the members of CamCo, and even purported to have matched them to the “IPs of their personal computers.” Those in the military who knew about neural processors realized the true meaning of that statement: they could glean the real names of the Camelot Company Combatants just using their IP addresses now.

“Elliot Ramirez has to be dying inside,” Vik said. “He’s not going to be the only famous face here anymore.”

Tom’s head pulsed. “This is bad.”

Vik dropped onto his own bed, slinging his boots over his mattress. “Yeah, especially for Blackburn. Someone must’ve hacked into the Spire and gotten the identities.”

“You think so?” Tom knew he shouldn’t sound hopeful. If it was all Blackburn’s fault, maybe there wouldn’t be an investigation.

“That, or we’ve got a leak.”

A leak. Tom felt cold. If Blackburn wasn’t responsible, he’d be fanatical in investigating who that leak could be. This would be a thousand times worse than when he hunted down the person who hacked the personnel database. This was
treason
. Tom headed to the window and stared out bleakly onto the roof of the Old Pentagon. He was in trouble. His meetings with Medusa were like a gigantic red flag.

Vik’s hand clapped on his shoulder, making him jump. “Cheer up. Think about the Summit.”

“What about it?”

Vik sounded gleeful. “Russo-Chinese intelligence has got CamCo’s IPs and names. Don’t you see? There’s no deniability once they have the names. If Elliot gets proxied at the Capitol Summit, they can plaster the face of Elliot’s real proxy on the news. Either we’re going to get embarrassed at Capitol Summit, or Elliot’s got to have someone who’s still got a secret identity come and fight for him. One of us non-CamCos. There’s gonna be some movement up the ranks.”

“It’s not going to be us, Vik. We’re plebes. Nigel Harrison will probably get to do it because he’s next in line for CamCo.”

“Still, it’ll be someone. They haven’t promoted any new CamCo members in ages.” Vik flopped back onto his bed, his face dazzled. “Imagine that. Your first fight in space—against Medusa. Imagine fighting Medusa.”

It took all Tom’s self-control not to blurt out everything.

P
EOPLE WITH NEURAL
processors did not dream. They opened their eyes at a time preprogrammed, wide-awake. But when Tom opened his eyes at 0513 hours, he knew it was too early, and something was wrong.

He bolted upright in bed and realized what the problem was: Lieutenant Blackburn towered above him in full uniform, gripping the wire he’d pulled out of Tom’s brain stem. A pair of armed soldiers waited behind him in the open doorway.

Tom’s mouth grew dry. He’d thought about maybe confessing his meetings with Medusa before anyone found out about them, but he wasn’t going to have the chance.

“Mr. Raines, do you know why I had to drag myself up here at this ungodly early hour?” Blackburn demanded. “It’s because some establishment called the Beringer Club heard about yesterday’s leak, and they felt it was their patriotic duty to wake me up and inform me that you were on their property recently. They claim you were communicating with an online acquaintance while there. Someone in China.”

And then it all made terrible sense.

Dalton. Of course, it was Dalton. This was all Dalton.

Tom should’ve said something in his own defense. He probably should’ve done most anything other than start laughing, but that’s what came out of his mouth.

“Something funny about this?” Blackburn said.

He clamped his hand over his mouth, aghast at himself. “No, sir.” His voice came out muffled. But his brain kept connecting the dots, and that hideous impulse to laugh wouldn’t go away.

Dalton, who’d as good as told him a few months ago that CamCo would be going public soon.

Dalton, who’d warned him through Karl that revenge was on its way.

Now Dalton was doing his “patriotic duty” and setting Tom up. The Beringer Club must’ve had some way to detect Medusa net-sending him. The leak was out, and so was some incriminating information about Tom. It was
all
so very
Dalton
.

“Do you even have the slightest understanding of how serious this situation is, Mr. Raines? Whoever leaked those names committed treason. There’s a mandatory ten-year prison sentence for treason.”

The word “prison” did it. The horrendous urge to laugh dissolved. Tom dragged his gaze up to Blackburn’s. “Look, I
do
have an online friend in China, but it’s …” He hesitated, knowing this was just going to make his case look worse, but honesty was the only thing he could offer. “Sir, I was meeting Medusa, okay? But I can explain. I didn’t leak anything, I swear.”

“Medusa.” Blackburn scrubbed a big palm over his mouth. “The Russo-Chinese Combatant, Medusa. Even you can’t be this stupid, Raines.”

“We just hung around and talked and played games.” The words spilled out of him. “I was just curious about her, okay? But I never said anything classified. It wasn’t me.”

Blackburn knelt down so they were at eye level. His voice was softer. “And she never sent you a link to a third-party website? Never directed you somewhere online that required you to run a script? Raines, are you very sure she couldn’t have snuck a Trojan into your processor that opened a back door into our system?”

“She wouldn’t do that.” It couldn’t be her. It had to be Dalton.

But …

Involuntarily, his brain turned back to Medusa net-sending him a message in the Beringer Club. She’d managed to penetrate his firewall and leave a message in his vision center, the way he’d done to her.

He knew how he’d done it. He’d done that thing where he hooked into the satellites, where he floated right through the firewall of the Sun Tzu Citadel. That was the thing he could do. But come to think of it, he still didn’t know how she’d managed it. How she’d penetrated the firewall and gotten to him.

No. He shook his head. No, Medusa wouldn’t do that. She’d kissed him. It couldn’t be her.

“But she likes me. We’re not … We’re …” He stopped, his cheeks burning.

He’d said enough. Blackburn reared back to his feet with a great sigh. “The honeypot is the oldest trick in the espionage book, Mr. Raines. Pretty faces have taken in presidents and generals, and it’s not outside the realm of possibility that one could take in a teenage boy. You need to get dressed and come with me.”

Tom rose from his bed and numbly pulled on his uniform, his mind racing over every encounter he’d had with Medusa, trying to pick out some hint she’d been manipulating him. He couldn’t see it. The leak couldn’t have been his fault, could it have?

Vik was still snoring softly in the other bed when Tom followed Blackburn from the room. In that moment, he would’ve given anything to be sleeping again, too.

When he stepped out of Alexander Division into the plebe common room, he found armed soldiers waiting. Their guns reared to attention at the sight of him, and Tom’s blood froze in his veins. The utter seriousness of the situation sank in. His heart began pounding wildly. He couldn’t seem to take another step. He couldn’t move.

Ten years in prison
.

“Put those down. All of you,” Blackburn ordered sharply. “Raines, pay them no mind. We’re going downstairs to talk.”

Tom’s throat was bone-dry. He felt rooted in place.

“I’m not a spy.”

“I believe you,” Blackburn said. “I’m fully convinced that if the Russians or Chinese wanted to sneak a double agent into the Spire, it would not be you. So ignore the guns and focus on me.” He pointed two fingers at his eyes, and Tom focused on them. “I’m sure this wasn’t intentional on your part. You won’t go to prison for being a dupe. But we have to go downstairs, and I need to see your processor so I can check for malware. They could be accessing the Spire right now.”

“Right now?”

“Yes, Raines. So we’ll do a system scan and see. And then we’ll use the census device to check your meetings so I can get proof you did nothing intentional here. Understand?”

Tom swallowed, and swallowed again. He felt like there was a mass jammed in his throat.

“Y-yes, sir.” He moved his legs that suddenly seemed to weigh a ton, and followed Blackburn into the elevator.

I
N THE INFIRMARY
, a tired-eyed Dr. Gonzales strapped a blood-pressure cuff to his arm and began giving him a physical for what Blackburn told him would be a neural culling with the census device.

“A neural culling is much like a regular memory viewing,” Blackburn explained. He was hovering over a nearby computer that was connected to Tom’s brain stem port by a neural wire. The screen flickered with data, Tom’s scan in progress.

Tom just watched that screen from afar, his skin prickling all over with anxiety as he waited for Blackburn to find something.

“The census device will sort through your processor’s indexed memories using an alternative search algorithm,” Blackburn went on, eyes on his screen. “You don’t steer the device this time. It steers itself and looks for memories and mental images you try to hide.
There!
”

His exclamation made Tom jump. He watched the lieutenant type rapidly at the keyboard. “And there it is.” His voice was triumphant. “This must be the malware. It’s certainly not mine.”

Tom’s heart lurched. He leaped to his feet and rushed over to see it, because he had to witness Medusa’s treachery for himself. Dr. Gonzales cursed, and Tom realized he still had the blood pressure cuff on, and the equipment trailing behind him had upended a box of supplies.

But he couldn’t focus on that right now. He grabbed the back of Blackburn’s chair and looked over his shoulder, his eyes picking frantically over the data on the screen. Relief surged through him when he glimpsed the suspicious file name. He shook his head. “That’s not malware, sir.”

“Raines, this is a sophisticated piece of software. I don’t expect you to understand—”

“I’m telling you, it’s not malware. It’s Wyatt’s.” He thought quickly of a reason for it to be there. “I asked Wyatt to write it for me after the war games. You know, because my programs suck.”

“They do,” Blackburn agreed absently, studying the program.

“Is that all you’ve found?” Tom asked hopefully. “There’s nothing else?”

He flipped off the screen. “Yes, that’s it.”

Tom could’ve whooped in triumph. No honeypot. No treachery. Medusa hadn’t been using him to spy on the Spire. It wasn’t his fault. He hopped back up on the examination table, feeling like he could soar up into the stratosphere, he was so relieved. Dr. Gonzales resumed his physical exam.

“So we’ve just gotta do this neural-culling thing, then I can go?” he asked Blackburn as Dr. Gonzales listened to his back with a stethoscope.

“We’ll stick you in the census device, and then you’re off on your merry way.”

Tom found himself grinning. He couldn’t help it. It was the best news he’d ever heard. He was sure of it.

Blackburn’s eyes narrowed. “But if you think I’m not at least putting you on restricted libs for being a colossal idiot, you’re sadly mistaken.”

Tom shrugged it off. Restricted libs was nothing compared to ten years in prison.

Dr. Gonzales stood up straight and ripped off the blood pressure cuff. “He’s healthy, Lieutenant. I’ll sign the authorization forms now.”

“Authorization forms?” Tom echoed.

Blackburn reached back, and retrieved a pile of papers. “A neural culling requires physician consent.”

“Will you need anything else?” Dr. Gonzales asked, flipping through one paper, signing it, and then the next. Then the next. On and on the stack went, and Tom wondered why there were so many papers for this. “Should I send someone down with incontinence supplies?”

Tom looked at Blackburn sharply. “Incontinence supplies?”

Blackburn shook his head. “It shouldn’t be necessary.”

“
Incontinence supplies?
I thought you said this is just like a standard viewing!”

Blackburn considered him. “It is, Raines. As long as there’s no resistance on your part, it
is
just like a standard viewing. But sometimes, especially in the beginning of the culling, people tend to fight the census device. A neural culling is intrusive. It brings up things you may not want to share, memories you may only half recall. It also brings up private mental images.”

“Private mental images,” Tom repeated, understanding it. “Like, uh, daydreams.”

“Yes.”

“And other things like that.”

“Yes,” Blackburn said impatiently.