Vortex (13 page)

CHAPTER NINE

S
HORTLY AFTER THE
meet and greets, things began malfunctioning around the Spire. Tom and Vik experienced their first malfunction the day Snowden’s group faced off with Karl’s. Karl chose the Battle of Bosworth Field. He was playing Richard III of England, and his army was ravaging Snowden’s forces—or at least, the future king Henry VII’s forces. Snowden hadn’t bothered to animate the Henry Tudor avatar, so Tom and Vik were free to do as they wanted.

Tom killed one of Karl’s troops and donned his livery, pulling the helmet low over his face. He and Vik proceeded to mock fight their way across the field, always warning each other of incoming dangers, hoping enemy soldiers would see them battling and leave them to it. When Vik spotted Karl, he gave Tom the signal, then Tom whipped his horse around and charged toward Karl.

Several of Karl’s trainees seemed to recognize him—Tom was sure of it—but they didn’t shout out any warning to Karl as Tom galloped up behind him.

Karl was too busy bellowing at his trainees to notice, his crown crooked on his head. “Are you worms paying attention? I said hunt down Snowden’s trainees. Get moving! Oh, but don’t kill Raines! Get him alive and bring him here. He’s mine, got it? Raines lives until I kill him.”

Tom laughed from behind him. “You got one part of that right.”

Karl whipped his head around—and got a face full of pikestaff.

“The part about ‘Raines lives,’” Tom explained to Karl’s corpse, tugging his pikestaff back out. He wiped it on Karl’s tunic before Karl’s body slumped off the side of the horse. “That’s the part I meant.”

Vik rode up to him, and together they discovered Karl’s crown where it had tumbled into a hedge. “Grab that and put it on Snowden, Tom. This can be like how Richard III died at Bosworth Field.”

But Tom wasn’t interested in that. “Yoink.” He plopped the crown on his own head. “I declare myself King Thomas the First of England.”

“Fine. Forget history,” Vik said. Then the pommel of his sword crashed across the top of Tom’s skull. Tom’s legs buckled, and he found himself kneeling on the field, his brain whirling.

Vik placed the crown on his own head. “I declare myself King Vikram the . . .”

A loud roaring noise drowned out Vik’s words, shadows blotting out the sky. Tom threw back his head and saw a fleet of Nazi planes soaring overhead.

Tom rubbed his head. “Did that happen at the Battle of Bosworth Field?”

“No,” Vik said, “there were no Nazi blitzkriegs in medieval times.”

But even as the Nazi blitzkrieg attack began, Julius Caesar arrived with an army of Roman centurions, ready for battle. On the other side of the field, Napoleon Bonaparte’s army closed in to meet him. A loud splintering sound filled Tom’s ears. He and Vik dove for cover just before Captain Hook’s ship ran aground on Bosworth Field.

In the meantime, schools of sharks fell from the sky and began flailing about on the field, teeth gnashing at passing soldiers. A giant squid tumbled down next and latched on to the pirate ship, while Captain Hook swiped madly at it with his hooked hand.

More and more elements from other simulation programs bled into theirs. Blinding light flooded the horizon as a hydrogen bomb detonated in the distance, and Klingon warriors began appearing all over the field. By the time the Death Star filled the sky and blotted out the sun, Tom had put his pikestaff away and Vik had sheathed his sword. They both sat and enjoyed, then began placing bets on various fighters. Tom put ten bucks on the
Tyrannosaurus rex
, and Vik bet on the Terminator. They both shouted in dismay when the T-rex charged off to tear apart one of the dying sharks, abandoning the battle altogether.

Vik elbowed Tom. “Really takes your mind off the meet and greets, doesn’t it?”

“What meet and greets?” Tom said, playing along. But his mood dampened instantly.

T
OM DIDN’T PAY
much attention to the malfunctions that kept popping up in the Calisthenics feed, in the Applied Scrimmages system. Some groups had a terrible time with the malfunctions. In one scenario, the Turks were chucking plague-ridden victims over the walls of Constantinople, and the trainees were inside. The trainees discovered only after they started dying of the simulated Black Death that the pain receptors were on full, and they couldn’t escape until they’d all died horribly.

Wyatt’s group had a great malfunction. An Amazonian warrior scenario became accidentally X-rated as Cadence’s group fought Elliot’s. Since Wyatt was in Elliot’s group, she saw everything, and she walked around all the next day in a sort of daze. Tom and Vik got enough details to cross their fingers and hope for a good malfunction the next few times they hooked in, but it never happened again.

Tom saw Blackburn and Wyatt working together more and more. They always seemed stressed out and frustrated, trying to pinpoint the source of the system faults. Tom didn’t dwell on it, though, because he had problems of his own. A month after the meet and greets, the Middles all woke up to their evaluations from the companies.

Tom lay on his bed awhile with his verdict sitting in his net-send, then he gave in and opened it. There were no specific comments in the evaluations, just two simple options:
Would like / would not like this trainee to return.

Simple options, but they meant everything. People like Nigel Harrison, who managed to score return invites but failed to charm, could condemn themselves at this stage of their career to having no sponsor down the road when they aimed to make Camelot Company.

Tom, unlike Nigel, had openly alienated every single one of the companies. Stomach churning, he flipped open his eval. His eyes moved over the five “would nots” checked next to the company names. It was no surprise at all, but he still felt like someone had punched him in the stomach, driving the air out of him. He stared at those words, suspended in front of his vision center, wondering how to feel about the official confirmation that he’d destroyed his own future.

Tom shut off the program. He couldn’t really sort himself out. So he forwarded his eval sheet to Vik, labeling it “Do I win something?” Then he waited, his stomach hurting.

Within a minute, Vik came dashing into his bunk, breathless. He proclaimed, “You are officially the most accomplished Doctor of Gormless Cretinism this world has ever seen!”

Tom decided this was the right response. He hopped out of the bed. “I know, right? Five out of five! Ka-pow.” He mock punched something.

“It must be a record,” Vik marveled. “That has to be a first, man. I don’t think anyone’s done that before. Five in one day. Has anyone else ever, ever, in the history of the Spire, pulled that off?”

Tom laughed. “No way. I’d bet I’m the first. I should frame it and stick on the wall or something. Like a trophy.”

Vik snapped his fingers and pointed at him. “You can! Tom, you can, man. I’m sure of it. We can add it to your bunk template.”

Soon, Tom’s giant Gormless Cretin statue held up a triumphant scroll of the message, like it was the Declaration of Independence or something similar. Various trainees began trickling in to admire it and congratulate Tom.

Of course, they weren’t all impressed. Giuseppe frowned. “Why would you put proof of your abject failure on the wall?”

Vik sighed tragically. “You just don’t get it, Giuseppe.”

Tom gave a helpless shrug. “You just don’t.”

That made Giuseppe angry. “No, this is what I don’t get: why you are both so in love with yourselves, you have giant statues of yourselves in your bunk templates.”

Vik sighed tragically again. “You just don’t get it, Giuseppe.”

Tom gave a helpless shrug again. “You just don’t.”

That drove Giuseppe from the bunk. As soon as he was out of sight, Tom and Vik began cackling. Unfortunately, that didn’t last long, because Yuri and Wyatt didn’t seem to appreciate the display, either. They examined the scroll of failures, and Yuri came over and gripped Tom’s shoulder. “I am very sorry.”

“Huh? Sorry?” Tom echoed. Yuri was ruining this.

“He’s okay with it,” Vik insisted. “Really, Yuri.”

“If I got a report card with all F’s, I wouldn’t put it on a wall,” Wyatt told Tom. “I also wouldn’t show it off to everyone and get people to talk to other people about it.”

Tom forced a laugh. “This isn’t the same as a report card. I mean, take away their money and power, and who cares about Reuben Lloyd or Sigurdur Vitol or . . .”

“But no one’s taking away their money or power,” Wyatt pointed out. “Everyone here cares about them.”

“I believe you are being in denial,” Yuri told him. “This is no good for you, Thomas.”

Tom’s eyes flipped up to Yuri’s. He was so tempted to say who denial brought to mind.

Vik didn’t have his self-restraint. “If you want to talk denial, then let’s look at—”

“Wyatt,” Tom cut in. None of them talked to Yuri about his hopeless plight as the eternal plebe, and it wasn’t the time right now.

Wyatt grew anxious. “What about me? Why am I in denial?”

“Because. Because . . .” Tom fumbled a moment for a sufficiently distracting excuse. “Uh, you’re from Connecticut, so you think Connecticut is an okay state. But it’s not. It sucks. You know why? Because Snowden’s from Connecticut. Therefore, Connecticut sucks.”

Wyatt got very distressed over Tom’s impugning her state. So distressed, in fact, that joy filled Vik’s face. “Bless you, Tom, for handing me this glorious new weapon.”

“Shut up, Vik,” Wyatt said.

But Vik had already settled on Tom’s bed. He muttered, “Connecticut . . . Connecticut . . . What to do with Connecticut?”

“I am fully aware of how thoroughly done for I am here,” Tom informed Wyatt, bringing them back to the subject at hand. “There is no denial. It’s acceptance.”

“Not acceptance,” Vik said, paying attention again. “He is
embracing
it, Evil Wench. And that’s why you are awesome, Doctor. You are a hero and an inspiration to us all.”

Tom shrugged modestly. “I do what I can.”

“It’s easy for you to say!” Wyatt protested, turning on Vik. “You got invited back to all those companies.”

“Yes,” Yuri added. “You are quite eager to downplay this, but I have been noticing you are not experiencing this issue yourself.”

“Tom has every right to feel depressed,” Wyatt insisted.

“Why would Tom be depressed?” Vik said, exasperated. “Yes, he had a setback, but it’s not like he woke up in Connecticut.”

There was a moment of silence as Wyatt processed his words, then her face grew very grave. “That’s how you’re using the Connecticut thing.”

“That’s how,” Vik confirmed.

“Don’t, Vik. It’s terrible.”

“Terrible? No, Enslow. You’re confusing Tom’s situation with living in Connecticut,” Vik said.

Wyatt hit his arm and stormed from the bunk.

Yuri sighed and patted Tom’s back. “Stay strong, my friend.”

Tom felt a bit sheepish as Yuri walked away, because obviously the big Russian kid thought Tom needed an encouraging shoulder pat. This really must be bad. As he and Vik launched into playing some games, the images blurred before his eyes.

“You’re in poor form tonight, Doctor,” Vik noted.

“I’m winning.”

“Poor form for you. Hey, you’re not really depressed, are you?” He sounded awkward just asking it. Tom shook his head.

“No, man. I’m good.”

“I figured. You’ll come back from this, Doctor. You always do.”

But later, when he was alone again, Tom stared up at those five reasons he was so, so screwed. He desperately wanted to be proud of it like Vik said, but the smile on his face made him feel like some sort of demented gargoyle, and the knot in his stomach was made of pure dread.

T
OM WASN’T LOOKING
forward to General Marsh’s reaction to his disgrace. His stomach plummeted when the summons appeared in his vision center. This meeting would not bode well for him. He was sure Marsh regretted recruiting him, wasting time on him. His legs felt like lead the entire walk up to the twelfth-floor observation deck, where General Marsh waited.

The night air was chilly, and Tom shivered a bit when he stepped out and snapped to attention. Marsh waved for him to be at ease, so Tom settled there, resigned to his fate.

“You wanted to see me, sir?”

Marsh beckoned him forward. “Do you know I have a grandson your age, Mr. Raines?”

Tom hesitated, then joined him by the railing. “I didn’t know that.”

“A little younger than you, but he’s a good kid. Very smart. If he’d been born at a different time, there’s no knowing what he could’ve gone on to be.” Marsh nodded up at the sky. “What do you see up there?”

“Uh, the moon, sir.” In the clear skies around Washington, DC, it looked stark, vivid, and full, and with a proper telescope, Tom was sure Chinese equipment could even be seen.

“Not the moon. That is Russo-Chinese territory and the end of this war.” Marsh jabbed his finger up at the rounded rock. “While we were busy shoveling money hand over fist to Wyndham Harks, gutting our schools and bombing people in deserts for Nobridis, the Chinese were busy training up millions of scientists, building their space program, and claiming the most strategically vital territory in a war we weren’t fighting yet. Whoever holds the moon holds the solar system, Mr. Raines, and whoever holds the solar system holds the future of humanity.”

He waved his stubby finger like he could point out the equipment, the weapons, the armaments.

“It’s their perfect, low-gravity launching pad, but there’s more. They could turn around tomorrow and destroy every one of our ships as they approach Earth. If they wanted to, they could probably turn those weapons outward and rotate around and around our planet, taking potshots at all our other bases in the solar system. This war could all be over in a few days.”

“They signed that treaty,” Tom said, remembering it from Tactics. “They agreed to a neutral zone.”

“What’s a treaty? It’s a piece of paper. An agreement means nothing in itself. It’s the power to force others to comply with that agreement—that’s all that counts. That’s the sham of this whole thing.”