Insignia (44 page)

On the screen:
Tom was nine and trying to sleep on a bench at a bus station, but Neil stood in the middle of the morning crowd, still drunk from the night before, railing stupidly at people walking past him, “Going off to vote Milgram today? He’s Obsidian’s man. Or Wantube? He’s owned by Dominion!”

He didn’t want anything from Blackburn. He tried twisting his head away, but Blackburn caught his jaw firmly and poured—and as soon as the water touched his tongue, Tom realized he was dying of thirst. He swallowed huge mouthfuls as …
His father kept ranting at people hurrying by him. “Ha! Either way you vote Coalition! Don’t you get it? You aren’t making a choice! Doesn’t anyone else see that?”

Blackburn set the glass back down as
the policeman came over. Neil ranted, “What do you mean, public disturbance? Is freedom of speech a public disturbance now?” Tom sat up from his bench, realizing where this was going....

“This is needless, Raines. Why are you fighting me?”

Tom stared at Blackburn’s fatigues, where the projected light was now playing the image of Neil brawling with three policemen. He closed his eyes, not wanting to see his dad get tasered like the last time.

“What hold does Vengerov have over you?” Blackburn said, lowering himself down before Tom’s chair, far too close. “Money? Threats? Blackmail? You can tell me. There has to be something.”

Tom could hear his father roaring in anger. He heaved in great breaths, suddenly feeling like he was drowning, his dad yelling on-screen and Blackburn pressing in before him.

“This ability you have … Is that the project he mentioned? Vengerov is obviously involved somehow. Is this Obsidian Corp’s next great experiment? Is that why he got your screenings waived?” Anger lined his voice. “Just tell me, Raines. A trillionaire doesn’t need the protection of a fourteen-year-old boy!”

“I’ve told you,” Tom croaked.

“No, you haven’t! You’ve lied!”

I am not protecting him!
Tom wanted to scream at him.
I DON’T CARE about Vengerov!
But it would be like screaming into a strong wind. Useless. So useless.

“Vengerov isn’t worth this.” Blackburn leaned closer, his voice right in Tom’s ear. “You can’t trust him. He’s the one responsible for all those deaths. Not just the soldiers in my testing group. Others.”

Tom’s dad’s shouts and the policemen’s shouts were dying down, and he knew on the screen, he’d see himself
standing in the middle of the train station watching his father get carried away in handcuffs. He started to follow, and then he stopped, realizing where he’d end up if he did. He’d find himself in some foster home somewhere. His dad wouldn’t want him to follow
. And Tom still remembered that feeling of being hopelessly lost in the middle of a busy crowd, wondering what he was supposed to do now, where he was supposed to go, feeling like he was slipping down some drain. It took him a moment to realize he wasn’t remembering the feeling. It was there right now inside him.

“We weren’t the first whose minds he butchered,” Blackburn went on. “One thousand Russians were, back when Vengerov was in charge of LM Lymer Fleet. He’d just inherited his old man’s company, and he figured he’d make a name for himself by taking a bold step with other people’s lives at stake. Most died, just like with us. The difference was, the Russians killed the broken survivors to bury the whole project. That’s why Vengerov had to come here. They would never have let him do it again, and he needed living subjects, living adults. He told our military that all he needed was a few hundred. Surely at least a handful would survive the neural processors, and that was all he needed. So they assigned a few hundred of us to the great experiment.”

Tom found himself staring at the new image on the screen, a smiling blond woman....
His mother, looking so young, back when he was so little he’d forgotten this. She was looking at him and smiling, her hair spilling over her shoulders. Tom clung to her, getting a piggyback ride down the dark street....

Blackburn must’ve seen something on his face. He stopped talking and his eyes followed Tom’s, to the screen.

She spun him around in a circle, streetlights whirling before his eyes. “So what are we gonna get for dinner?”

“Ice cream, Momma!”

His mother whirled to a stop, laughing, and staggered a bit. “We’ll get a tub of ice cream bigger than your head, Tommy. And hot fudge, too.” Her hair was all scrunched up against his face, and …

The memory scorched its way through his head. Tom was aware of the beams digging into his brain, but he couldn’t stop looking because he didn’t remember even living with his mother. He didn’t have any memory of his mother, well, loving him. He didn’t remember her like this. He couldn’t bear to see this.

“It’s that painful seeing her, is it?” Blackburn remarked, looking at him again. “Then I can guarantee you, you’ll see more of
her
in the hours ahead if you don’t give me—”

And then something happened.

Tom was looking through his own eyes and he was not, he was seeing fire, and then the census device was fused to his brain and sparks fountained from the controls. With a spike of rage, Tom sent an electrical current whipping from the metallic claw.

Blackburn yelled out and crashed to the floor.

Tom snapped back into himself, the stench of smoke in his nostrils, his heart jerking against his rib cage. Blackburn lay, heaving ragged breaths for several stunned moments. Then he struggled back to his feet, one arm clutched uselessly to his side.

He surveyed the census device, his eyes wild. Dark smoke curled up in a twisting line. Comprehension flooded his face. “That was you, wasn’t it?” His gaze dropped to Tom’s. “You interfaced with it.”

Tom didn’t know. He didn’t know anything right now, except he was tired and sick and he wished he’d killed him. “I’ll fry you again if you turn it back on!”

Blackburn circled the census device, singed arm clutched to his torso. “You burned out one of the legs to stop me.” He paused a moment, a strange smile on his lips as he took a moment to absorb the idea. “Who knew you could do that? Thatta boy, Raines.”

“I’ll do it again, I swear!” Tom screamed at him.

Blackburn just seemed intrigued. He raised his good arm and grabbed one of the still-functional legs. “Go ahead. I’m touching it. There’s no way you can miss. Do it again.”

“I’m not bluffing! I’ll electrocute you!”

“And I’m waiting with bated breath.” Blackburn didn’t even sound sarcastic. “Do it, Raines.”

But Tom couldn’t. His chest felt tight. He couldn’t seem to get enough air in his lungs. He felt like he was going to break down, and he’d rather be flayed alive than let Blackburn see that. “You’re insane.”

“Yes, I’ve heard that tune.” Blackburn released the leg and lowered his arm back to his side. “And I see you can’t do that on command. That’s useful to know for tomorrow morning.”

T
OM WOKE UP
still strapped in the chair, his brain aching in his skull, his head stuffy like it might burst. His thoughts were scattered, strange things to him after hours of culling. He stared dully at Olivia Ossare, who stood in front of him, jerking the straps off his wrists, muttering to herself. “This is savage … just a child.”

His voice came out scratchy. “You came.”

“Tom!” Her warm palm cupped his chin. “Are you all right?”

His head pounded. He closed his eyes because it was easier than answering that. She helped him stand and then wobble down from the chair on rubbery legs.

“Is this over?” he asked.

Her grip tightened on him. “I’m working on it, Tom. Right now, Lieutenant Blackburn can’t be reasoned with. It took me this long just to get in to see you.”

Tom’s vision blackened and he swayed. She eased him down to the floor. He sagged to the ground, his head flopping against her arm, the ceiling spinning overhead in frantic circles.

He felt her fingers threading through his hair. The memory of his mother, so close to the surface, flickered up as she stroked his hair. He kept his eyes closed, a knot rising in his throat.

“Please let this be over soon.”

He didn’t realize he’d spoken aloud until she told him, “I’m doing my best. I’ve been trying to get in touch with your father.”

“My dad can’t help me.”

“He can, Tom. He can sue for custody of you.”

Tom’s eyes snapped open. He sat up quickly enough to make his vision blacken. “Custody?”

“The military can’t retain custody of you if your father withdraws consent.”

Tom’s head ached. He felt like he might vomit. “I’d have to quit to get out of this?” Blood buzzed up in his ears. “But the neural processor can’t come out. Not ever.”

“Your brain becomes dependent eventually, but you only had it installed five months ago. I spoke to Dr. Gonzales, and he said it’s early enough to allow for a phased removal. They’re doing something similar with your friend Stephen.”

No.
No
. He couldn’t go back to that. Loser Tom moving casino to casino with nothing ahead of him, nothing behind him, nothing, nothing …

But if he stayed, and Blackburn kept culling his brain …

He’d go insane. He couldn’t take more of this. He’d go insane and he’d give away Yuri and Wyatt.

Hot frustration roared up inside him. Tom curled a hand into a fist and slammed it into the floor. The world sharpened into focus around him. He slammed it again and again. Then Olivia caught his wrist.

“Tom, stop that. You’ll hurt yourself.”

He didn’t care. The pain was distant in his awareness, fury swamping everything. Short of punching Blackburn’s face over and over, it was the only thing that made him feel better. He tried twisting out of her grip, but he was too worn out to keep it up for long.

“I am not contacting my father,” Tom said. “I need an option C.”

“There is no option C, Tom. I need your father on our side if I’m going to get you out of this.”

Tom’s gaze drifted up to the census device, burned out, looming in calm menace over the chair and arm straps. “It’s option C or nothing.”

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, Blackburn sent soldiers in to strap Tom into the chair, a fully repaired census device looming overhead. Tom tugged at the arm straps, surveying the metal claw morosely. His head remained foggy from his fitful sleep. He watched Blackburn glide into the room, a bandaged arm clutched to his side. The sight flooded him with venomous glee.

“Does your arm hurt?” he asked Blackburn as he prepared the device.

“Not a bit,” Blackburn answered.

As Blackburn shifted, Tom swung his boot toward the bandaged arm. Blackburn hissed and flinched back just in time.

Tom smiled at him maliciously, taking a horrible, dark pleasure from it. “It hurts.”

“Not like this will.” Blackburn flipped on the census device, the most stinging retort of all. The bright beams of light bore into Tom’s temples, digging, digging into his brain, his memories, flipping open one, discarding, flipping open another, discarding all like pieces of trash, searching for Vengerov.

Neil … his mother … Karl … his mother … Dalton … his mother …
He was a few minutes into it this time before a loud clang shut the machine off.

It took Tom’s fuzzy brain a moment to focus on General Marsh’s voice.

“What exactly do you think you’re doing, Lieutenant?”

Tom jerked in his seat, elation sending his brain soaring. He saw Marsh and Blackburn facing off, the screen between them. “I’m investigating the leak, General. As you ordered.”

“I didn’t say you could strap Raines into the census device. Get him out of that chair. Now!”

Blackburn didn’t move. “No, sir.”

“Excuse me?”

“He stays.”

“This is an order!”

“And I’m disregarding it, sir.”

Marsh swore, and charged over toward Tom. His leathery face was twisted in fury, and Tom sagged back, so relieved he felt like he could hug the old general.

Blackburn trailed behind him with a slow, deliberate stride. “Before you release him, there’s one thing I’d like to make clear, sir.”

“What?” Marsh whirled on him, his knobby fists clenched at his sides.

“If you take him out of that chair,” Blackburn said, “I leave. I walk away.”

Marsh was silent a long moment. “Are you threatening me?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m doing, sir. I won’t just walk out, though. I will rig up this entire place with a good-bye present that all of Obsidian Corp. won’t be able to fix.”

Tom couldn’t believe Blackburn, a lieutenant, was just standing there threatening a
general
. That wasn’t how it worked. Hatred and anticipation surged through him. Marsh was going to make him so sorry for it!

“James, you wouldn’t do that,” Marsh said, a note of pleading in his voice. “I know this leak has to hurt your pride, but this is taking it too far.”

“Try me,” Blackburn replied simply.

Tom stared disbelievingly at Marsh’s back. Why wasn’t he ordering some soldiers in to arrest Blackburn? Or doing something even remotely general-like to a lieutenant who dared to talk to him like that?