The Armor of God (2 page)

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This one had been found by a teenager—a produce farmer’s son. The kid had explained how he had stumbled upon the tip of its horn by accident. Just a matter of chance. How long would it have remained buried had the kid not gone out for a walk?

Lance Corporal Brice Kemper had really begun to believe these things were being sent to them by gods no one believed in except him. There was no other explanation, or at least none in which he believed.

The farmer’s land would become an excavation site for months, but the process of exhuming this new monster had begun as promptly as possible. Dozens of people—scientists and soldiers of Zenith—had crowded the site in just a few hours. The machines had already removed earth as far down as its chest. There was still a lot of work to be done—this one was bigger than most of the others.

“What is this one, the twentieth?” Dahlia Mizrahi said. The young scientist looked at the monster as though it was a god: with a unique blend of fear and admiration.

“Twenty-first, if you count Milos,” Brice replied.

“I wonder what its match will be like,” she said. “Sometimes it’s hard to believe the matches can exist.”

“Of course they do,” Brice said, staring deep into this horned monster’s many eyes. He would never get used to those eyes, and how they seemed to look at his deepest fears. He scratched the stubble on his chin and sighed. “For every body a soul—”

“—and for every Creux a pilot,” Dahlia finished.

Chapter 1

A Matter of Blood

The line was slow to move
and the minutes long to pass.

Though time was something Ezra had enough of to spare¸ patience was not. He had turned eighteen three months before, so he could no longer blame his nature on youth—he just disliked long, drawn-out affairs that didn’t immediately interest him.

As a confessed cynic (and someone who tried really hard to live up to that self-appointed reputation), there weren’t many things that actually interested Ezra. People around him found that side of him unflattering; he didn’t care, of course, and at least now Ezra had every right to be impatient and bored.

There were still at least thirty people in front of him, all of whom were noisier than any eighteen-year-old enlisting in military service had any right to be. The soldier at the end of the line was taking too long with each. Ezra wondered what was taking so damn long. Wasn’t he just checking ID cards, taking blood samples, and handing out further placement instructions?

It could be worse, he thought. At least he had left his house early enough to beat most of the others; a casual glance back at the line behind him let him know that some people would be here for much, much longer than him.

There were many stages to this process; Ezra had studied them to mentally prepare himself for this day of waiting and bureaucracy. After this line, Ezra would be sent to a classroom in another wing, where he would take an aptitude test. Then, depending on the results of said test, he’d either take another one, have a physical examination, or be sent home. He hoped for the third option, but knew that would only happen if his test results branded him unfit to partake in military service—either because they found him too weak, too stupid, or in general too lame to be part of the nation’s defense force. The White Card, the item everyone in here was trying to get, was a stupid little piece of paper that only assured Johnny, Mike, or Sylvia had completed military service and could be considered an adult citizen, granted all the appropriate powers, benefits, and responsibilities.

He couldn’t hope too much; Ezra didn’t consider himself either strong or smart, but it was extremely rare for the country to find you unfit. He’d have to be missing an arm and a leg to be sent home.

Ezra wondered if he could chew them off right there. It would almost be worth it—sure, he’d be a child forever in the eyes of the government, and with an arm off to boot, but at least he’d get a good nap before his usual lonely dinner.

The photo of a man so unpleasant-looking it made Ezra angry stared at him from the wall.
Governor Heath
, Ezra thought; as did everyone in the city of Roue, he knew this man.
Everyone seems to love him, but right now it’s hard to.

After a few more minutes, a whooping noise made him and several others look straight ahead at the end of the line. A very big kid who looked way older than eighteen—someone whom Ezra had noticed earlier due to his stature—was whooping his joy, and the soldier who had just given him placement documents shared it with him.

“
I can’t believe it!
” the large kid yelled, looking at all the others, some of whom joined in his happiness by cheering him on. Ezra wondered what made him so happy. He couldn’t possibly have just been deemed unfit—this kid looked bigger and stronger than half the armored and uniformed soldiers in the base. Even if he was as dumb as he looked, he could still be used to lift heavy things from one place and put them in another place.

Maybe Biggun there actually looked forward to military service.

Ezra hadn’t even considered that notion. It was too absurd to him.

The brilliant idea of having more than a single soldier working on a line of at least a hundred people came to the geniuses at the army base twenty minutes later, and the lines began moving much more smoothly.

Ezra finally got to the end of the line and was called by the same soldier who had given Biggun the documents that made him leave with such happiness. The soldier was black-skinned, thick-necked, generally large, and bald as a knee. He wore a ring on his nose like a bull; Ezra thought it actually looked cool, but said nothing.

“Name?” the soldier asked, taking Ezra’s ID from him.

“Ezra Blanchard.” He paused awkwardly, trying not to feel intimidated. “Uh,
sir
.”

“Blanchard,” the soldier said, looking at Ezra’s ID card. “I knew your sister, if she is who I think she is.”

“Taller than me, all pretty-like, and with the sense of humor of a frying pan?” Ezra said, and this made the soldier laugh.

“That was her. We went through military service together four years ago. She got out, and I stuck around,” the soldier said and then kept on talking. Ezra could only think that it was no wonder the line had been taking too long—this guy was way too chatty.

“Your wrist.”

Ezra showed him his bony right wrist, which the soldier grabbed with one huge hand. Then with the other, he pressed a tiny machine against Ezra’s skin. It pricked at his vein and drew a bit of his blood, gathering it in a small vial.

But before the vial was filled, when Ezra’s blood came in contact with the machine’s sensors, it emitted a rather alarming beep that startled both Ezra and the soldier. The man looked at the machine in disbelief, then at Ezra, then back at the machine. Then back at Ezra.

“Boy howdy,” he said. “
Two
this year.”

“Two
what
?” Ezra asked.

“You’ll see soon enough,” the soldier replied, grinning. “The good news is you won’t need to take any of the standard tests today; the bad news is your military service is probably going to be quite a bit longer than anyone else.”

Dammit all to blood-splattered hell.

He was all fire in an environment that begged for stoicism, so even if he desperately wanted to flip over every table he saw, he really couldn’t.

Now, an hour after that first vial of blood was drawn, he found himself in an office, away from all the other kids who hadn’t been as unlucky as him.

It was just his luck, of course. If he hadn’t been in the less-than-one-permille of people who found themselves in his situation, he’d almost be done and would be back home. Sure, he’d still have the regular year of military service ahead of him, but it would no doubt be easier than—

He had stopped listening again. The uniformed woman at the other side of the desk had been talking for a while, but Ezra had barely registered anything she was saying. He had been too busy trying to plot a plan to weasel out of this pointless responsibility, whatever it was.

Hell in a jar!

“Mr. Blanchard, are you listening?”

“Would you believe me if I said I was?” he was bold enough to say after a beat.

She was not amused, and her exasperated sigh testified to that. “All right, look: I know you’re at that funny age, and that you come from an important family, but you’re going to be stuck with us for a while, so you either make a few adjustments to your attitude or we’re
all
gonna have a very crappy time—
especially
you.”

Silence filled the office for a moment after he nodded, feeling embarrassed. His eyes wandered to a picture of the woman in formal uniform during what had to be some kind of graduation ceremony. She could look pretty, apparently.

“Now, do you understand what’s happening here, or rather, what’s going to happen?” Ezra shook his head and looked at the nametag on her breast:
Cpl. Higgins
. “Whether you like it or not, your blood is extremely rare and puts you in a position to make an enormous difference for Roue’s future.”

“If you’re talking about my family’s wealth, don’t count on any of it; I left my family when I turned eighteen, so I’m broke. I’m living on saved credit.”

“I am aware of your family’s wealth—the entire city is, and we in the army are particularly grateful for how generous they’ve been for generations. I’m also aware of your emancipation. I’m talking about your actual
blood
.”

“What about it?” he asked.

“It possesses a very unique property. Something
very
few people have. And it’s something we can use. No wait, let me rephrase: something we
need
to use.”

“I don’t suppose I can just give you a few pints of it and get out of here.”

She shook her head. “Sorry. Sounds like I misspoke. It’s not the blood itself—it’s what your blood lets you do. The power it gives you.”

Now he was becoming interested. He had never really known power of any sort (wealth, yes, but not power; that had always belonged to his parents), and the notion was intriguing, even promising. “I don’t know about that,” he said.

“Your blood is what we call ‘C-Compatible,’ and it makes you eligible to join a very special branch within the army, one that many would kill to be a part of: Zenith,” she said. The emphasis she gave to that last word made him think it was something he should react to, but she might as well have been speaking in another language. “You’re going to be part of Zenith, and of the army, for a good while, Blanchard. Maybe for life.”

Insects clawed at his stomach. She was joking or maybe exaggerating for dramatic effect; the army couldn’t enlist someone for life, certainly not against his will, no matter how precious his blood apparently was. Zenith, whatever it was, had to have the same rules.

“Do you understand?” she asked after another brief silence.

“Not even a little,” he grumbled. “What if I refuse all of this?”

Corporal Higgins chuckled. “You know the answer to that. If you want to become an adult citizen, you need your White Card. If you want your White Card, you need to do your service. If you don’t, you cannot be part of ‘The Great City State of Roue’.”

“So I would be exiled?” he asked.

“Or executed, depending on the judge—the martial court can be very nasty if you don’t act the way they expect you to. You have to know you wouldn’t last an hour outside Roue—the monsters outside would rip you to pieces the instant you set foot on their turf. Either way, you’d be very much screwed.”

“Seems to me like I’m already screwed. I have no business being in the army for such a long time.”

Maybe for life.

“They say life is what you make of it. I would’ve done anything to be where you are when I started my service; you have so much to look forward to: new friends, new knowledge, abilities, a lifetime of adventure. And yet for some reason you seem to think it’s the end of the line. What exactly are you doing with your life right now that’s so much better than this?”

He wanted to answer just so she didn’t have the last word.

But he couldn’t. He didn’t have an answer. What
was
he doing that was better than whatever the army and Zenith had in store for him? He was living a lonely, aimless, and pointless existence—why did he care so much if that was taken for him in exchange for what some would call a purpose?

“This was just . . . not part of my plans,” he finally said, his voice cracking.

“Well. Welcome to adulthood.”

After another hour of talking, mostly about the last year of his life and not this precious ‘C-Compatible blood,’ Corporal Susan Higgins walked him to another office, where the seemingly endless succession of interviews and tests would continue.

At least she had apparently grown to like Ezra a little bit more, maybe out of sympathy. Some of her words in the office sounded like something she had wanted to say—not to him specifically, but to anyone. Maybe her own life plans had at some point seen an equally sudden reroute. Maybe she could relate. He still didn’t know what would happen to him, but if he did end up stuck in the army for years, it would be good to have at least one friend inside.