The Proving (19 page)

“Cleo likes to use her own icons,” Reza explained. “She changes the settings on every computer she uses because she’s a butthead. There.
Now
will you ask Skye?”

Ben turned to Skye, shrugging helplessly.

“Come sit over here,” she told the Persian boy. “I’ll show you how my rifle works.”

“. . . And I’m stuck here looking at DNA codes,” Tahlia said, crossing her arms.

“Just look,” Ben said. He ran his finger across the holoscreen, moving and rotating the DNA chain. The computer began automatically breaking it down. “Incredible. Mrs. Walker is a relative of yours! And look: see these mutations?” On the DNA chain, three red links were interspersed with the remaining green ones. The computer increased their size, pulling them apart so they floated in front of Ben’s face as big as butter knives. “Unknown origin. Three isn’t much, though. From what we’ve learned from other . . . um,
victims
. . . the mutations can get much worse than this. It’s almost like acute radiation syndrome.”

Gabriel, who’d been keeping his distance at the other console, leaned in to look. Ben obliged, leaning out of the way and zooming in one specific mutation. “What does the mutation do?” Gabriel asked.

“I can’t say with certainty,” Ben answered grimly. He pursed his lips. “It’s against the law to perform any tests on Specters, so . . .” He caught himself, clearing his throat. “Uh, it’s not a
bad
law. It’s just unfortunate because you can’t really capture one and there are so many precautions taken now that casualties are rare, and even then . . .” He stopped, not knowing where he was going or what he was saying.

Skye snickered. “He’s saying he doesn’t like your rules, Parliamentarian.”

“No! No. That’s not it. I’m just saying it would be nice to know more. Know thy enemy.”

Gabriel returned to the seat at the opposite console. “I don’t make the laws.”

“You will someday,” Skye said. Her tone was threatening, as if she already knew his future. Ben watched her expertly attach a spare battery to her VR rifle. Clan Sparta was notoriously neurotic about
everything
. It disappointed him that Skye exhibited the same distrust, although it didn’t surprise him.

But maybe if she just got to know Ben, she would at least see that he was a good guy who exhibited relatively few sinister tendencies. He also knew a lot about buildings, which he thought made him a little more interesting than a lot of his peers who spent all of their time in labs . . .

He shook his head, clearing the thoughts. Maybe, he pondered, the nanobots were making his teenage hormones even
more
imbalanced than normal.

“Ben, what’s that?” Tahlia asked, pointing to one of the highlighted genetic mutations on the top of the holoscreen.

“Progeria,” Ben said. He reached out with his finger, fumbling with the holographic display until it zoomed in on the specific DNA mutation. “It’s a rare disorder that causes accelerated aging. Given Mrs. Walker’s age, we can state confidently that she wasn’t born with this genetic mutation. It was caused by the Specter as it passed through her.”

“So that’s why she looks so . . .” Gabriel left it hanging there.

Ben nodded. “Partly. Again, we don’t know for sure. And typically, Progeria is a condition whose effects take years to kill the victim. It ages you prematurely. The abnormally-shaped nucleus —”

“Helloooooo!”

Ben started at the sound of Cleo’s voice coming through the speakers above the screen. His hand fumbled with the holoscreen. “Um. Hello? Hello?”

“Hellooooo? Anyone there?”

“Yes!” Ben called in the general direction of the speakers. “Hello? I don’t know how to answer. Why can’t she hear me?”

“Reza, get your butt back to your station!” Cleo shouted.

Reza got up from where he’d been sitting in front of Skye. He sighed heavily, pressing the cat icon on the console’s touchscreen. Ben had no hypothesis for why Cleo had changed the comm program’s icon to a cat. “Go ahead.”

“I’m done.”

Ben looked at Gabriel. They both looked at Skye. “You’re . . . can you explain?” Ben called into what he assumed was the communication device’s mic.

“OK first off: stop yelling. Just talk normal. Second off: the solar panel circuits are fixed. The supply depot is currently recharging its big, fat battery and I’m running electrical tests right now.”

It seemed impossible to be true. They’d accomplished their mission. “Are you sure?” Ben asked.

“
I’m calling you from the console in the depot
. So obviously I’m sure. Gimme fifteen more minutes to run a diagnostic on this stupid door locking system and we’ll be done. Literally. Done.”

“We did it,” Gabriel said, smiling.

“We won?” Tahlia asked. She looked at Seamus, who had taken a seat across from Skye. “Did we win?”

“I’m not sure you can
win
a Proving,” Seamus said. He cleared his throat. “But by all indications, you have successfully met your objectives.”

The kids cheered. Ben, caught in the excitement, cheered a little too. Skye cracked a smile, meeting his eyes. She
cracked a smile
. That just made the whole adventure worth it.

“What’s the next step?” Gabriel asked the Historian. “Do we just head home?”

“That’s not my decision to make,” Seamus said. He looked at the floor. “Your Coterie decides when to leave.”

“We’ll check and double-check to make sure everything is functioning properly,” Skye said. “Then, tomorrow morning, we’ll leave.”

“What?!” Cleo’s voice crackled through the speakers. Behind Ben, Gabriel’s response was the same. “Tell me the good soldier is kidding. Someone please tell me she didn’t just tell us we’re spending the night out here.”

“I don’t
want
to spend the night out here,” Wei told Gabriel. She sniffled. “I want to go home, Gabe. You just said we were finished so why can’t we go home?”

“Skye, we can’t stay out here,” Gabriel said, grabbing Wei’s hand. “It’s too dangerous.”

Skye reached out her hand and punched the door lock. The Tumbler door slid open. “Go outside and find the sun.”

Ben, curious, followed Gabriel and Wei outside. Tahlia followed behind him, bumping into his back as she hopped off the Tumbler.

The sun was gone. Only its dull orange glow remained, radiating from behind the mountains to the west. But over their heads was a much more frightening sight: the Ring, looming out there in space circling Earth like some cosmic racetrack of swirling reds and oranges. If it was just ice and rock, it would be beautiful.

If
it was just ice and rock.

“It’s so easy to forget about it,” Ben said, mesmerized. “You just . . . get used to it.”

Skye joined them, flanked by Reza and the quiet Spartan boy named Cassidy. The kids craned their heads. Reza lost his balance and fell back a step, eliciting a giggle from Tahlia and Wei. Reza smiled and did it again, getting the same reaction. Ben watched the interaction, happy to see it. Tahlia’s studies took precedence too often. When Ben was her age, he’d been obsessed with building blocks. He’d built towers and buildings and then put little figures inside the buildings and imagine how much they loved his designs. In school, he made friends with a boy from Clan Persia and the two of them started designing their own building blocks using the 3D printer on their school campus.

But Tahlia didn’t have many toys. She had books and a few favorite holo-shows she watched in the evening. Friends came over, but they were all from Clan Athens. No friends from the other clans. No friends who were just regular citizens. It upset Ben. Even though the primary schools were fully integrated — clans and free citizens alike — some clan members just couldn’t fully shed their distrust. And over what? Thousands of years of antagonism and “they started it” justifications for aggression.

Even now, Skye pulled Cassidy close to her. Protective. As if the boy was in danger around the others. As if the Ring discriminated. But the Ring wasn’t a sentient creature. It was composed of trillions of chunks of ice and rock and trillions of Specters. Every collision inside the Ring loosed hundreds of them, casting them from the Ring in every direction. A Specter was just as likely to disappear into space as it was to land on Earth.

“We lost track of time,” Gabriel said.

“
We
didn’t,” Skye said.

“So why didn’t you warn us?” Gabriel asked, exasperated. He waved his arms in the air. “We could have helped Cleo repair the array! We could have left hours ago!”

“You don’t know anything about repairing electric circuits,” Skye said. “The Persian does.”

“I could have at least handed her a wrench,” Gabriel said. The kids laughed. He looked surprised by the response. “I just mean we could have helped.”

“You’ve helped enough,” Skye said. “When we were in danger, you screamed in my ear. That’s how free citizens help.”

“Oh, right. Finally! Here comes the Clan Sparta
holier than thou
verbal tirade. Go ahead, Spartan. Tell me how superior you are and how useless everyone else is.”

“Gabe,” Wei said, wrapping her arms around his waist. “Don’t fight.”

Skye jammed a finger in front of Gabriel. They were the same height, but just the way Skye stood made her look more intimidating. She was in a fighting stance; Gabriel’s weight was on his left leg, pulled back, as if he expected a punch to be thrown his way. Ben had to fight the urge to take a step back, too. “I read your file. You’re a freaking
poet
. You study literature and you write poetry and everybody fawns over you because your mommy is a bigshot in Parliament. Nothing in your file even suggests you’re capable of helping us in any way out here. You’re a part of this Coterie because someone bent the rules and got you transferred with us.”

Seamus hopped out of the Tumbler, stepping beside Ben. He had his arms pulled behind his back — if he felt as uncomfortable as Ben over the whole situation, his body language didn’t show it. Maybe documenting thousands of clan conflicts became numbing.

“We don’t need to fight,” Ben said. “The mission is complete.”

“You know why the clan wars ended?” Gabriel asked, his voice rising. “Because everybody got sick of your crap! All of the clans always fighting over the same crap humans have fought over since the dawn of time. Clan Sparta bombed a city for a month and then showed up and claimed they were the people’s saviors. Then Clan Athens staked a claim on the city and did the same thing. Then Clan Persia. And all the while, the people in the city — the
survivors
, at least — suffered! And finally, humanity got fed up with it!”

“And now you sit around and enjoy the fruits of our labor,” Skye said. “Free citizens sit around and watch their holo-shows and shop and wander around and spend their Basic Income while Clan Sparta mans the guns and keeps the Specters at bay.”

“Please stop fighting!” Wei shouted. Ben felt his heart race. This was escalating too quickly. He had a horrible flashback to his first Proving five years ago. The New Adults had broken down into fighting in just the same way. They had completely forgotten to protect the kids. Had Skye not shot that Specter . . . by Hades, they might all have died.

“I think everything is fine,” Ben offered. “We can still drive back —”

Skye turned and glared at him.

“What exactly do you want from us?” Gabriel asked her, laughing incredulously. “You want us all to spend every waking moment of our lives staring up at the Ring and fretting about the Specters? Wallowing in pity?” He looked around, locking eyes with each of them in turn. “Poverty is eradicated. Literature and arts thrive in every city that remains. Our Phenocyte reactors help advance science and medicine and we’re learning how to expand our Xenoshield systems farther and farther. Things are better than they have ever been in the history of the human race. That’s worth remembering.”

Ben turned to Seamus. They all did, waiting. Finally, Seamus cleared his throat. “Compared to past societies, modern social and economic conditions are vastly superior.”

Skye burst into laughter. “I guess we’ll have to take your word for it, Historian. Since you’re the only one with access to the Historical Archives.”

“A safeguard to ensure that History is preserved in a political vacuum —”

“Shut up,” Skye snapped. She turned back to Gabriel. “Maybe you’re confused because you weren’t with us during our first Proving . . .”

“That wasn’t my choice,” Gabriel said.

“We don’t travel at night. It’s insane.”

“It’s not your call,” Gabriel said. “We vote. That’s how the Coterie makes decisions.”

Skye’s thick pink lips pulled back into a frustrated smile. She moved her jaw, grinding her teeth. Ben imagined the sound they might make if he was standing closer: wet, porcelain-like friction. He nervously rubbed his chin, thinking of some way to restore at least a little order.

“We . . .” He stopped, thinking quick. What would satisfy a Spartan? “A vote would be the best way to follow protocol.” Skye turned to him. Seeing the anger in her green eyes unnerved him but he continued: “When we were thirteen, uh, on our first Proving, the New Adults failed because they bickered and nearly got everyone killed. It was only Skye’s bravery that saved us. We would distinguish ourselves if we showed that we learned something from that experience.”

He looked to Seamus, hoping the Historian could at the very least recognize a pretty darned obvious “help me!” facial expression. Seamus studied Ben for a moment, then cleared his throat again. “Consideration for additional commendations is dependent on exigent circumstances.”

“What he means,” Ben said slowly, “is that Parliament will take into consideration the fact that we destroyed a Specter
and
the fact that we initiated a vote to make a crucial decision.” He smiled, hoping it looked genuine. It
felt
awkward on his face, as if it knew it didn’t belong. “We might even get a medal of valor.”

Skye said nothing. Gabriel seemed equally uninterested in adding his two cents. The kids, predictably under the circumstances, looked more than a little lost.

“Well?” Ben asked anxiously. “I mean, it makes sense to follow protocol, right?”