Insignia (42 page)

“You’re going to see them,” Tom repeated.

“Yes, Raines, and if you can’t get over that, I’ll end up seeing a lot of them. For both our sakes, embrace immodesty.”

Tom’s head throbbed. “So why incontinence supplies?”

“Prolonged resistance leads to a prolonged culling,” Blackburn explained. “The device is designed to search for memories you actively conceal. If you resist, it begins digging out other, unrelated memories in an attempt to neutralize your ability to resist. It strips away your psychological defense mechanisms in a systematic fashion. Theoretically, it could break your mind. But that won’t be an issue. If you didn’t commit treason, you have nothing worth hiding from me, and this will be over very quickly.”

Something nagged at Tom’s brain, though. And he didn’t figure out what it was until they were out of the infirmary, heading down the hallway toward the elevator. Blackburn waved away the armed soldiers again, grumbling something about overkill, so the soldiers lowered their guns again and fell behind them at a distance.

Halfway to the elevator, Tom stopped dead in his tracks.

He was remembering something: jogging through these hallways with Yuri.

With
Yuri
.

Yuri, who had a new firewall.

Tom’s vague worry morphed into real horror. He knew Yuri’s secret, Wyatt’s secret. He hadn’t committed treason, but
they
had. If he knew it, Blackburn would soon know it. The neural culling would find that in his brain.

“Wait. I don’t want to do this.”

Blackburn turned. “Refusal’s not an option here, Raines.” He studied him a moment. “I realize you’re afraid—”

“I’m not scared,” Tom protested.

“Good. You shouldn’t be. Let’s go and get this over with.”

“I don’t want to get a neural culling, sir!”

“This is not a choice.” Blackburn spoke slowly, like he was explaining something to a young child. “You don’t have right of refusal when national security is concerned.”

Tom could hear his heart pounding, it was beating so hard. He hadn’t worn his forearm keyboard, so he scanned the nearest wall for a computer. Maybe he could net-send Wyatt a warning. Then she could rescramble Yuri and cover up evidence or whatever.

“Can I contact someone first?”

Blackburn’s eyes narrowed. “Who?”

Tom couldn’t answer that.

“You’re beginning to seem very suspicious right now, Mr. Raines, do you realize that?”

Tom was breathing hard. He looked at the soldiers, then at Blackburn, a sense of doom crashing over him.

“Okay, I’ll go,” Tom said. He started to follow, waiting until Blackburn bought it and turned away from him. Then Tom whipped around and sprinted off down the hallway.

Cries rang out behind him,
“After him!”

T
OM WASN’T STUPID
enough to think he’d be able to escape the Pentagon all on his own. There was one person who could step in right now and avert disaster, a person even General Marsh couldn’t touch. He just hoped she was there. He threw himself against Olivia Ossare’s glass door, and pounded his hand against it. He heard boots thumping toward him.

Moron, moron, moron
, Tom’s thoughts beat.
It’s not even 0700, of course she’s not here yet....

And then she rose up from the other side of the desk, where she’d been leaning down, going through her drawers. Relief gushed through him. As soon as she slid aside the glass door, he bolted inside, fighting the wild urge to grab her and whirl her in a circle or something.

“You’re here in case we have a problem with our military custodians, right?” Tom said, all in a rush. “Well, I’ve got a
huge
problem with my military custodians.”

Her brow furrowed. “What’s going on?”

“You have to help me. You
have
to.” Tom heard pounding on the door, and jumped a foot in the air, stumbling into her desk away from the sound.

Outside the door, Blackburn’s soldiers were staring in at them. Tom felt sickened by the enormity of what was happening here.

“What is it?” Olivia stepped toward the door.

“Don’t!” Tom grabbed her arm. “Don’t open it.”

But she took his wrist and gently eased his grip from her. “Tom, sit down. I am going to tell them to wait.”

“What if they won’t listen to you?”

She squeezed his hand, then released it. “They’ll listen.” There was steel in her voice. “Now sit down.”

Tom couldn’t seem to catch his breath. But there was a calmness, a self-assurance in her voice, that made him somehow believe her.

When she turned toward the soldiers, he grabbed her computer, called up net-send, and started to type in a message to Wyatt, then he realized it. No, he couldn’t do this, either. Blackburn could track it. He deleted it quickly. His brain went blank. He couldn’t think of anything to do. He didn’t have any way to save himself.

His eyes riveted to the soldiers beyond the glass, arguing with Olivia. Her soft voice persisted, and then amazingly, miraculously, they backed off. Tom never would’ve thought some guys with guns would listen to her. She closed the door and settled behind her desk.

“Want to fill me in, Tom?” she asked him.

Tom closed his eyes, trying to sort it all out. He knew he’d made a mistake, running from Blackburn. He didn’t know what else he could’ve done.

“Blackburn thinks I’m the leak and he’s going to use the census device on me.” His words began spilling out faster and faster. “I’m not the leak. I swear it, I’m not. And it’s not like a regular memory viewing. They’re going to rip memories out of my head. Blackburn said it could break your brain if you use it long enough. Dr. Gonzales said it could make you incontinent. I don’t want to be incontinent, okay? I don’t!”

Olivia’s brow knit like she was pondering it. “They have no right to force this on you, Tom. I’ll speak to Lieutenant Blackburn.”

“He won’t listen to you. Look, do you have any civilian resources that can help? Any at all? Because I don’t know what to do.”

“I’ll talk to General Marsh.”

“He’s in India right now meeting with some military guys about the Capitol Summit.”

And then Blackburn himself was at the door, speaking to the soldiers. Tom clenched his fists on the desk in front of him, watching with a knot of dread in his throat the way Blackburn lifted his forearm keyboard, and typed something.

Click. The lock snapped open.

Blackburn strode through the door.

Olivia leaped to her feet. “What do you think you’re doing?” she shouted at him, rushing around her desk and planting herself between Blackburn and Tom. “This is my office. You don’t have the right to break in here!”

“And that’s one of our plebes.”

“You can’t do this.” When Blackburn moved toward Tom, Olivia stepped in his way. “I’m this boy’s advocate, and I am not letting you seize him and subject him to that device. He’s a civilian, and you don’t have this authority. You are breaking the law, Lieutenant!”

He was unimpressed. “A law’s a piece of paper unless someone’s willing and able to enforce it. Let’s ask the folks with the guns, shall we? I’m breaking the law here. Anyone care to arrest me?” He threw up his hands in mock surrender and glanced back at his troops, who just stood there in silence. “No? Well, that answers that. Move aside, Ms. Ossare.”

He started forward again, but she stopped him by planting her hands on his chest. “How dare you.” Rage made her voice shake. “You are overstepping your jurisdiction. These are his legal rights—”

“Before you lecture me about rights, tell me, really, how have you been here for three long years without figuring out the way things work? He’s not at a summer camp. He’s a military asset. His rights begin and end with that neural processor in his brain, and that’s still more than most of the rabble can claim. As for my jurisdiction? I have brute force. You have words. One trumps the other. I’ll show you which.” He plucked her hands from his chest, then whirled her around, and shoved her out of his way.

She started for him again, but one of Blackburn’s men caught her around the waist. Tom jumped to his feet, because Olivia looked ready to fight them all, and he wasn’t going to let her get hurt. He’d done everything he could, coming here, seeing if there were civilian resources. There weren’t. It was done, and it would only get worse if he didn’t stop this now.

“Ms. Ossare, don’t! It’s okay. I’ll go with them.”

“Thatta boy, Raines,” Blackburn said, closing the distance and seizing him. This time, he didn’t tell the soldiers to lower the guns they’d raised. He dragged Tom from the room with a firm grip on his arm.

Olivia rushed after them as soon as she was free. She reached out, and her dark hand enveloped his, just briefly. “Tom, I will get you out of this,” she pledged. “I swear it.”

“Thanks,” Tom said, before Blackburn jerked him forward and out of her reach. He didn’t think she could, though. He knew nothing could save him from the census device now.

T
oday, the Calisthenics Arena resembled a tropical island. Tom charged forward, faster and stronger than anyone else in the simulation. At a quiet, sunlit cove, he waited to help Heather over a fallen palm tree. She leaped over the log, then stumbled, and gave a squeal of surprise. Her uniform had fallen off!

Her beautiful eyes rose to his. “Oh no, what do I do, Tom? It’s so cold without my clothes. And zombies are attacking me!”

A bunch of zombies began attacking her. Tom felled them all with blows of his mighty fists. Heather gasped in fear of the zombies, then in admiration at Tom’s prowess
.

Tom turned around and strode forward, towering over her by a foot, his shoulders as broad as Siegfried’s. Heather’s beautiful eyes feasted upon the sight of his perfect six-pack, bared where his tunic had been torn open by the zombies. “Oh, Tom, you’re so buff and brave. You’re ten times the man Elliot Ramirez is.”

Wyatt walked by and said, “It’s true! He is!” Then she walked away
.

Tom gathered Heather in his muscular arms. “Don’t worry. You don’t need clothes. Not when Tom Raines is around.”

Another girlish shriek
.

It was Ching Shih, the Chinese pirate woman Medusa played in Pirate Wars. She’d tripped over the same palm tree and lost her uniform, too. But she wasn’t actually Ching Shih. It was a younger, much more beautiful version of her. It was Medusa the way Tom imagined her
.

“Oh no, Tom,” Medusa said. “I’m cold now, too!”

“Well, well.” Tom chuckled. “It’s lucky for you that I’ve got two arms.” He reached out for her, and Medusa pranced over and happily joined them
.

Heather pouted. “Tom, I don’t want to share you.”

“Maybe I don’t want to share Tom with you, Heather.” Medusa pressed up against Tom’s powerful chest
.

Tom smiled at the two girls in his arms. “Don’t fight over me, ladies. Big Tom’s got enough loving for both of you.”

They blushed, murmuring about how good-looking and charming he was, and then they looked each other up and down
.

“A
LL YOUR FANTASIES
go the same way,” Blackburn complained. He was seated next to the census device, coffee in hand, Tom’s mental images on the screen overhead. “Don’t you ever get bored?”

“Feel free to stop watching!” Tom screamed at him.

“Calm down. You’re getting hysterical … Big Tom.”

Tom closed his eyes. He wanted to be shot right now. But first, he wanted to see Blackburn shot. No, eviscerated.

He sat beneath the census device, arms strapped down to keep him from fleeing again, the points of light blaring into his temples from the suspended, upside-down claw. He hoped a meteor would hit the Spire and obliterate it around them. Anything, anything to stop this.

As the fantasy took its natural course, Blackburn let out an exasperated breath and said, “Enough already.” He launched himself to his feet, reached overhead, and turned off the census device.

“Are we done?” Tom asked hopefully.

“We haven’t started, Raines. You and I have wasted three hours on these inane fantasies of yours. When will you get it through your head that you can’t hide anything from me while you’re in that chair? If you’re already fighting me on something so mildly embarrassing as these—” He seemed to fumble for the right phrase. “—these implausible encounters you’ve imagined with various female trainees, then this is going to be a long ordeal for both of us.”

Tom glared at the screen, his fists balled up against the armrests.

Blackburn snapped his fingers to draw Tom’s attention back to him. “Try this, Raines. Don’t think of an elephant.”

“What?”

“Don’t think of an elephant. I repeat, do not think of an elephant.” He let those words hang in the air a moment. Then, “You’re thinking of an elephant, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I’m thinking of a stupid elephant now! Why?”

“That’s how this works,” Blackburn told him, pointing at the screen. “You’re trying not to think of that elephant, which gives you a keen awareness of that elephant. The census device can sense that awareness. It knows you’re hiding something. It won’t stop digging through the rest of your memories until it senses that you’ve stopped hiding that elephant from it.”