Vortex (4 page)

Wyatt raised her hand, then dropped it quickly, remembering this wasn’t like a classroom. At Marsh’s nod, she blurted, “Sir, if we’ve had areas blocked from our processors, how do we know there aren’t other things in the installation we can’t see?”

Sniggering from the other side of the room. General Marsh gave a stern head shake, then said to Wyatt severely, “If there are, Ms. Enslow, you will find out in due time when we decide we want you to see them.”

Wyatt fell silent.

Then Marsh went on, “You’ll all have your first meet and greets with Coalition executives this Friday. Even those of you who don’t become Combatants down the road will find this a useful networking opportunity if you play your cards right.”

Tom’s thoughts flickered to Dominion Agra. He’d flooded sewage on their entire executive board, so that was one company that would never sponsor him. He could use this chance to make a better impression with the other companies.

As soon as they were dismissed, Tom’s mind turned back to that armory. His gaze shot to Vik’s. Tom could see the same eager spark in his eyes.

“Guns?” Vik asked him, obviously ready to go to the armory right away.

“Weapons,” Tom agreed.

They realized only when they neared the door that Wyatt wasn’t with them.

“Wyatt?” Tom called to Vik.

Vik spun around, looked behind them, then answered that question with a single name. “Blackburn.”

One word, but it was enough to send an unpleasant jolt through Tom’s body like he’d been shocked by another Taser. His gaze swung around to see Wyatt and Lieutenant James Blackburn. Tom’s heart began thumping, adrenaline and hostility surging through him as he saw the large, hard-faced lieutenant with close-cropped hair and a scarred cheek leaning over Wyatt, saying something to her. He wasn’t sure when Blackburn had slipped into the Lafayette Room, but he’d obviously called Wyatt over for a quick talk by the opposite doorway.

Tom’s vision tunneled into a single focus point.

This was the man who’d tried to rip his brain apart. Tom’s every survival instinct began blaring an alarm. Blackburn and Wyatt had had a falling out of sorts when Blackburn thought she’d hacked his personnel file and told people private things the trainees weren’t supposed to know about him.

Now they were talking again. Tom’s head spun. When had this happened? How had he missed it? Blackburn reached down and clasped Wyatt’s shoulder with a big hand. Tom didn’t like this. Not at all.

Vik lightly whapped the back of his head. “Doctor, guns!”

“Right, Doctor.” Tom grinned at his fellow Doctor of Doom. They weren’t real doctors, of course, but they’d called each other this ever since the war games. “Weapons.”

It was hard to force himself toward the door when all he wanted to do was charge over and shove his worst enemy away from one of his best friends.

CHAPTER THREE

I
T WAS GLORIOUS.

The armory stood like some miniature fortress in the middle of the track, obstacles, climbing walls, and shallow pools. When they crossed through the door into the armory’s depths, they found themselves in a narrow corridor. Each step carried them past racks dangling armor and other accessories such as optical camouflage suits to render a soldier invisible. There were guns of all types, some that Tom’s neural processor identified, some it would not. At the end of the hall, a massive platform rested at shoulder height on top of it. Tom and Vik saw row after row of aluminum-and-steel machines that resembled exoskeletons, like a small army of headless androids ready to go all artificial-intelligence-doomsday scenario on them.

Tom and Vik gazed up in mute reverence, vaguely aware of other newly promoted Middles walking in, exclaiming over the sight, then leaving again. Soon no one else remained, leaving them to contemplate the wonders around them. Tom wanted to test shoot every one of the guns, don all the armor, and go all out against an alien invasion, or maybe against those metal skeleton things.

Vik gingerly lifted a small cylinder that resembled some sort of handheld cannon. “Look at this.”

“I’m not sure what that sucker is, but I’m going to call him ‘Big Bob,’” Tom said approvingly.

“Your head could fit in the muzzle of this thing,” Vik said, awestruck. “Seriously. Come on and let’s see.”

“I’m not sticking my head in a cannon thing. Stick your own head in.”

“I have highly temperamental hair. It’ll get nestlike. You don’t care when your hair gets nestlike, Tom. You can’t possibly.”

Tom wasn’t listening, because he was reaching out to pick up another intriguing weapon of terrible death. His neural processor informed him it was a miniature electromagnetic pulser. For some reason, the knowledge this thing could fry a neural processor made it all the more exciting for him. Visions of firing it at Karl Marsters danced through his head.

Then Vik lifted a small, rounded object with a flattened base that Tom recognized from the infirmary. “What do you suppose this thing does? It was on the floor, not on any of the racks.”

Tom quashed his smile. “Oh, I know what it is. Press that button on top.”

Vik pressed the button. Confusion furrowed his brow when the device started beeping.

Tom drew a deep breath, then bellowed, “IT’S A GRENADE!”

Vik gave an earsplitting shriek and jumped so high, he crashed back into the wall, sending the device clattering to the floor. Tom cackled gleefully and scooped the device up, then flipped off the beeping. “Just kidding. It’s a timer thing. I’ve seen them in the infirmary.”

Vik snatched the rounded timer from him and peered at it suspiciously. “I am going to put you in the infirmary now, you gormless cretin. Find something we can duel with in here so we can launch eons of dynastic Raines-Ashwan warfare.”

Joy filled Tom, and he scoured around, hoping for some knives or something similar, but just as he claimed his gun, Wyatt joined them. She looked at Tom with one gun, Vik with another, and halted in her tracks.

“Are you guys seriously messing around with real weapons?” she exclaimed. “It’s like you want Darwin Awards!”

Tom flushed, and set his gun back on its hook. “It’s not like we were going to start a dynastic war or something.”

“Yeah,” Vik said guiltily, returning his own weapon.

Wyatt bit her lip. She threw an uneasy glance around them, looking daunted by the sight of all the weapons, right there for the taking. Tom spoke as casually as he could. “What did Blackburn want?”

Wyatt reached out and poked at a piece of armor with a finger, like it was some animal that might snap at her. Then she poked it harder when nothing bad happened the first time. “He found out about something I did during my vacation, and he said it was good work.”

“What?” Vik said.

Wyatt shrugged mysteriously. “He also said he knew I didn’t hack his profile and he tends to assume the worst about people, so he apologized for getting so upset about the Roanoke thing and discontinuing my programming instruction.”

“And, what, you forgave him?” Tom blurted. “After he yelled at you like that and ignored you for weeks, he just has to say sorry and you’re over it?”

Her eyebrows drew together in her long, solemn face. “He said he was
really
sorry.”

“You saw what a psycho he was, Wyatt. He turned on you for no reason before. You think that can’t happen again?”

“It was only because you said that Roanoke thing. That’s the only reason he acted that way. Obviously it was a sore point.”

“No. No, you don’t get it,” Tom said, agitated. “It’s not a sore point. It’s the
only
point. That guy you saw that day?
That’s
the real Blackburn. Trust me on this.”

“I know him way better than you do, Tom.”

“No,” Tom said, raking his fingers through his hair, frustrated. “You
think
you do. You see the way he
pretends
to be. He pretends to be reasonable; he pretends to be sane. He’s not.”

He stopped talking, since Wyatt and Vik were both looking at him strangely.

The thing was, they knew Blackburn had tried to “fry his brain in the census device,” in those exact words. Tom had never told them much more than that. He hadn’t told them Blackburn had set out to tear his mind apart when Tom had refused to show him his memory of Vengerov; they didn’t know Blackburn had threatened to wipe out the Spire’s systems, just to stop Marsh from freeing Tom; they didn’t know Blackburn had a vendetta against Joseph Vengerov, since Vengerov had intentionally implanted him with a neural processor that he knew would kill him or drive him insane. They didn’t know that during his psychotic episode, Blackburn had accidentally killed his own kids, and as a consequence, he’d thought nothing of destroying Tom in search of something he could use in his vendetta against Vengerov, the man he held responsible.

But Tom couldn’t even begin to tell his friends about this. Not any of it, because there were too many secrets, not all of them his, and they were all tied into the memories Blackburn had discovered in his brain. Blackburn miraculously turning around and forgiving Wyatt felt like a direct threat to Tom. Sure, he might’ve been the one who told Blackburn that Wyatt never hacked his profile, that she didn’t even know about Roanoke, but Tom hadn’t done that to
reconcile
them. . . . He’d done that to rub Blackburn’s mistake in his face.

He regretted it now.

They headed out of the armory to join the rest of the Middles who were trickling into the Calisthenics Arena for their morning workout. Tom, Vik, and Wyatt waited outside the armory along with the other four new Middles—Makis Katehi, Kelcy Demos, Jennifer Nguyen, and Mervyn Bolton. They all nodded at each other, but no introductions were needed; they’d been plebes together.

Soon Tom realized who they were waiting for. His fists clenched.

Lieutenant Blackburn ascended the stairs from the lower floor of the arena, then halted before the armory. With a tap on his forearm keyboard, he caused eight of the machines that resembled headless, metal skeletons to step down from the platform and march out to stand before them.

Blackburn turned to them. “Let’s get started, Middles. You’ll find Calisthenics much like it was when you were plebes—exercising, simulated images to motivate and direct your actions, that sort of thing. There’s a notable exception: the armory. Each Monday, simulations are programmed to expose trainees to a variety of weapons that military research and development plans to give to future, neural processor–equipped soldiers. Since muscle memory is vital, we physically give the trainees weapons without ammunition. Not only does this enable you to learn how to use them, but it enables our researchers to study how well you’re
able
to use them solely from the downloads installed in your processors. One of these weapons is particularly dangerous. Since they can only be controlled by someone with a neural processor, I’m the lucky guy stuck teaching you how to use them without killing yourselves or anyone else. What’s the first rule of this lesson you’re going to have with me?”

No one answered him. Tom had no idea.

Blackburn held up a finger. “Rule number one is: my time is infinitely more valuable than yours. Don’t waste it by messing around or ignoring your instructions. I will tell you once, and I expect you to remember. You have photographic memories and superhuman brains. You have no excuse for inattention, and no excuse for forgetting what I’ve said. Now, let’s discuss these exosuits.”

He thumped his palm on the nearest metal machine.

“There are your basic strength-enhancement tools. You see, top brass believes that every armed en terra—Earthbound—conflict in the future will be handled by a small number of soldiers. There’s a compelling reason for scaling down the number of soldiers in the armed forces: it’s easier to find
one man
willing to fire upon civilian insurgents than it is to find a few thousand. It’s cheaper to pay one soldier than it is to pay thousands. So these individual soldiers have to be walking arsenals. They need to be in command of heavy machinery that one person can’t possibly handle unless he has inhumanly superior strength and stamina. That’s where exosuits come in.”

Blackburn inserted his legs into the wide, leg-shaped frames of an exosuit, then shoved his arms into the exosuit arms. When he clenched his fist, the metal mesh fingers contracted with his, and the metal frame closed around his arm, shortening so the metal joints aligned with his elbows and shoulders. Then Blackburn reached back and pulled up the metal neck of the exosuit, hooking the prong on the end of the neck into the access port of his own neck. Immediately, the rest of the exosuit mimicked the actions of the arms, contracting to fit around his body, the joints of the exoskeleton lining up with his joints. Soon, Blackburn was wearing what resembled a metal mesh frame from neck to toe.

“Right now I have forty-two times an average man’s strength.” Blackburn held his arms out to the sides, displaying the way the thin metal even encased his fingertips. “Give me a pair of goggles with infrared and night vision; some high-density steel armor with fiber-optic cloaking capability to render me invisible; maybe a ceramic, medicine-secreting vest to clot up and heal any wounds I receive; some built-in air-conditioning to regulate my body temperature; a few mechanized drones to be my scouts; some overhead satellites to be my eyes and ears; a couple rocket launchers for my arms; a distant carrier ready to launch cruise missiles at my command, and . . . well, kids, give me all that, and I become a supersoldier, the decision maker at the center of a vast nexus of automated weapons and armaments. Theoretically, one supersoldier could travel back in time and obliterate the entire Third Reich. This is the future of warfare. Now”—his gray eyes roved over them—“what is the most important thing to remember when you’re wearing these?” His gaze snapped over to Vik. “Ashwan. Guess.”

Vik blinked. “Is this the your-time-is-infinitely-valuable thing again?”

“That was rule one, Ashwan. This is rule number two.” And then Blackburn grabbed Vik in one swift movement and hoisted him over his head, causing Vik to give a startled yelp. Then, to Tom’s shock, Blackburn hurled Vik up into the air a good twenty meters.

Tom’s heart leaped as Vik’s kicking body sailed toward the ceiling and plummeted back down. Blackburn caught him easily and set him gently back on his feet.

“Care to guess now, Ashwan? What is the next rule we are going to discuss?”

“The s-strength.” Vik raised his wide eyes up toward the ceiling.

“Thatta boy, Ashwan. Superstrength. The human body is a frail, weak, easily ruptured thing. These exosuits are not. Rule number two: respect the power of these machines. Mess around in these and you will kill someone. The prototypes for these machines were around when I was a cadet. Those versions were only seventeen times an average human’s strength. I got to witness one cadet jump up as high as he could in an exosuit. Before he smashed into the ceiling, he had a head. Afterward, he had something that resembled a smashed watermelon on top of his neck.”

Tom looked up at the ceiling, intrigued. He figured if he jumped too high, he’d try to punch straight through the ceiling before his head got smashed. That would work. He was sure of it.

“That’s why I’m teaching you the old-fashioned way how to use these,” Blackburn finished, “working on muscle memory with you, not programming exosuit use into your brain. There’s a fundamental difference between a human being and a machine. Human beings think in imprecise terms. ‘A bit’ means something to a person. If I told him to jump thirteen point seven centimeters, however, he would estimate and be wildly off because precise numbers don’t mean much to the standard human brain. Machines, on the other hand, are precision instruments. They don’t understand ‘a little.’ They
do
understand thirteen point seven centimeters. Using an exosuit properly means
learning to be precise with your movements. The sole reason you can use these exosuits safely is because your brains are already part machine, but these are only safe if you’re careful. So pick a suit, hook in, and wait for my instructions.”

After Blackburn’s intro, most trainees approached the exosuits with trepidation. Except Tom. He was excited to give it a shot. He eagerly hopped into his suit, flipped up the neck to connect it with his neural access port, and felt a thrill all over as the machine seemed to awaken around him, the metal legs and arms shrinking down to clasp around his limbs at the joining points. He stood there a beat, wondering if he should wait for everyone else, and he decided not to. He took a great, bounding step forward.

He sailed eight meters with the first leaping stride, six meters with the second, eleven meters with the third. Another couple steps, and Tom realized he was at the other side of the arena. He wanted to
live
in one of these.

And then he heard several loud clanks of exosuited legs pounding toward him. Before he could whirl around to see who it was, a steel-and-aluminum grip closed around the aluminum band across his collar and jerked him to a complete standstill.