Secondborn

  Hawthorne’s jaw ticks.

  “So, how does this work?” I ask, gesturing to the combat suit, changing the subject.

  He shows me, and it’s ingenious. A catheter lines the interior of the armor for long missions. He describes how to position the collector so that I don’t wet myself and how to change it when it becomes necessary. I step into the suit, sans catheter. Armor plates run over my calves, thighs, torso, and arms. Hawthorne tightens my elbow buckles, tugging on my armor like he’s trying to protect me. I want to lean into him, gently brush my lips against his. He has no idea.

  Hawthorne pulls the armor breastplate from my locker. “You can put this on a couple of different ways,” he explains. “I usually unclip the right buckle of the waistband, shrug into it, putting my head through this hole, and secure the waistband clip. Some soldiers lift the breastplate over the head, and then tighten both the waistband clips. Whatever works for you.”

  I do it the way he does it. The wide armor-plated straps hang on my shoulders, holding the armor in place. I secure the right clip of the waistband. He tugs on the belt to cinch the waist, hands me a headset, and passes me a helmet. It fits me like it was made for me. The visor clicks out in sections to cover my face.

  Hawthorne hands me elbow-length gloves and a fusion-powered rifle. He steps back from me and admires his handiwork. “Goodness, Roselle. You look like a soldier!”

  “I am a soldier.”

  He pulls a tin of wax from his pocket. “Rub this on all the shiny parts of your armor. Some of the clips need to be dulled down so that they don’t reflect light and give away your position. Don’t go using it on your legs. I only have this little bit.”

  I nudge him with my shoulder. “Very funny.”

  “Ration rotation happens in ten. I’ll wait here for you while you change.” He leans against the lockers and crosses his arms.

  Dining in the air-barracks is as informal as you can get, just bins of premade food in foil packages. We line up for the bins. There isn’t much to choose from. I pick up a red foil package and begin to read the label, but Hawthorne snatches it out of my hand and tosses it back in the bin. “Don’t eat that. Remember: ‘Red for a reason.’ Here.” He thrusts a green foil package into my hand.

  Hawthorne takes two of everything except the red package.

  Tables and chairs occupy most of the room. We spot Gilad, Hammon, and Edgerton at one. I follow Hawthorne to the table and sit down next to Edgerton. Hawthorne sits beside me. I strip off the long plastic spoon from the foil pouch, tear away the top of the foil, and stir the contents—creamy chicken salad.

  Hawthorne hands me a package of rolls. “It’s better with these.”

  I take one. “Thank you.”

  “Why’s she here, Hawthorne?” Gilad growls.

  “She’s hungry,” he replies.

  “All you’ll get from her is trouble,” Gilad grumbles. He’s not wrong.

  “So I should run panic-stricken from her?” Hawthorne asks. “Like most of these soldiers around us? Isolate her because she’s different?”

  “It’s called caution,” Gilad says, looking straight at me. “She may not last long here. No sense in getting attached. No hard feelings, Roselle. I’m just a realist.”

  “Sure, Gilad,” I reply. “Let’s just get all our awkward moments out of the way now.”

  “So, Roselle.” Edgerton addresses me from his seat next to Hammon. “Tell me why you shave your stems—and what else do you shave?” Hawthorne begins to choke. Hammon elbows Edgerton.

  “What?” he queries Hammon. “You’re the one what wanted to know. I was just going direct to the source. Roselle and me has that kind of relationship. Don’t we, Roselle?”

  I pat Hawthorne on the back as he tries to catch his breath. Red-faced, he wipes his eyes. “Where I come from,” I answer Edgerton, “females shave their legs, armpits, and . . .”

  “You don’t has to do that. We’ll like you just fine with hair,” Edgerton replies, as if he’s sorry that I’ve been raised by savages. Hammon elbows him again. “What?” he asks her, dismayed. “We will. She’s our friend, even if she does strange things.”

  “Thank you, Edgerton,” I reply. “That means a lot to me.”

  Hammon gives me a friendly smile. “Sorry. Edge still has mountain sensibilities. Things that appear impractical are lost on him. He forgets what it was like to be newly processed.”

  “I know that a lot of things from my world don’t make sense here,” I reply. “How long has it been since you were processed?”

  “I was eleven,” Hammon says. She looks over at Edgerton, her adoration obvious. “We were all processed on the same Transition Day. That’s how we all met. You make most of your core friends on your first day.”

  “We was just sayin’,” Edgerton chimes in, “how hard it must’ve been for you not to Transition with anyone else.”

  “I didn’t say that,” Gilad interrupts, not looking up from his food. “I said you’d be puking up sunshine to be the only one.”

  “Gilad and I were best friends from the start,” Hammon says. “Then Gilad brought Hawthorne in, and I brought Edge in.”

  “So you’ve all been together for years?”

  “We’ve been lucky,” Hawthorne replies. “None of us has been transferred. We were assigned to Tritium 101, and it’s been home ever since.”

  “We all made the rank of Strato together. Well, Hawthorne made it first. He’s up for Meso now,” Hammon says proudly. “I bet he gets it by the time we’re done with active duty. We’ll have an officer in our midst soon.”

  “I might not get it,” Hawthorne says.

  Edgerton rolls his eyes. Gilad says, “You’ll get it. You earned it.”

  There’s genuine love here, even between Gilad and Hawthorne, maybe especially between them. A cold sort of anger bubbles up in me. It’s hard to name what it is at first, but then I realize that it’s jealousy—of their relationships with one another, the camaraderie, trust, respect, and love. I’ve never had that.

  I glance away from them. A familiar face catches my attention over at a different table. Jakes sits with a few other engineers. I haven’t thought much about him since I was thrown in detention. He nods and points his chin toward the door. He gets up from his table and leaves. Crumbling the foil meal package in my hand, I stand. “Please excuse me, I have something I have to do. I hope you have a lovely evening.”

  I hurry for the exit, following him. Jakes is at the end of the corridor by a heartwood. I move in his direction. He takes the heartwood, and I follow him down. We pass a few decks. He steps off into a hangar that houses combat troop movers and Winger aircraft. Most everyone is still at dinner. He pauses by some metal crates, and I join him.

  “I looked for you before we deployed,” he says by way of a greeting. He pushes his thick glasses up on the bridge of his nose.

  “I was in detention. I was picked up for brandishing.”

  “I heard. No one has ever stood up for me before.”

  “It was my fault you got harassed in the first place. I’m sorry there was trouble, but I’ll always take the consequences.”

  “Maybe I’m tired of being cautious,” he mutters. “Maybe it’s time for a little danger.”

  “Do you have something for me?” I ask.

  “I do. I was looking through schematics for some older weapon designs in the archives.” He touches the scanner on the metal crate, opening it. “What you wanted isn’t so far-fetched. Most of the old designs were scrapped when fusion came along, but I was able to use existing diagrams and parts to create this.” Inside the crate is a fusionblade housing, but it’s unlike any I’ve seen before. The silver hilt is longer than a normal fusionblade’s. Not only that, a regular sword of this caliber has only one strike port where the energy flows from the weapon. It’s the source from which a fusionblade glows with golden power. This weapon has two strike ports: one at the top of the hilt, and the other at the base of the hilt.

&nbs
p; I lift it from its case. When I squeeze the hilt at its center, two light-infused blades ignite from it. At one end, a golden fusionblade; at the opposite end, a silver hydroblade. It’s truly a dual-bladed sword.

  Jakes comes nearer to me. “If you choke up by moving your grip toward the fusionblade’s strike port, Roselle, the hydroblade will extinguish. The opposite will occur if you place your hand closer to the hydroblade. Or you can have both if you keep your grip centered on the hilt.”

  Most of the time, I’ll only use one side of the sword or the other because to have them both lit at once is dangerous, unless I use it like a staff. Jakes shows me how to switch off each side so that it won’t pop on accidentally.

  “This is remarkable. You’ve done it, Jakes!”

  “It wasn’t that hard. The hydrogen cells are abundant,” he explains. I wave the dual-blade around, trying out complex maneuvers. “We use hydrogen cells for powering some of our burners in the lab—it’s heavy hydrogen—condensed. I can show you how.”

  “I’d like to learn that.” I want to learn everything he knows about everything. I’m tired of being ignorant. I want to be able to break into consoles, like Flannigan could. I want to write the story of my life to suit me. I want to see the world without restrictions. I want to use my mind to obtain freedom, like she had.

  “We get these hydrogen cells in bulk,” Jakes continues. “They last about a thousand hours before you have to change them out and recharge them.” He holds it up. It resembles a silver bullet with a clip on the back of it. “You can put them in one of your armor compartments, or maybe even in your hair. They have clips on the backs.” He slips a hydrogen cell into my hair like a decorative pin. “Just open the housing on the hilt here to reload.”

  “Am I interrupting something?” Hawthorne asks from behind us.

  Jakes looks startled. “It’s okay. Hawthorne is a friend,” I tell him.

  “What’s this?” Hawthorne asks, indicating my new weapon.

  “Something we need. Hawthorne, how many merits do you have?”

  “A lot. Why?”

  “Because I need some to get an ugly mole removed, and so do you.”

  “I don’t have an ugly mole.”

  I blush, remembering catching a glimpse of him in the locker room with just a towel on. “You have a mole, Hawthorne, and it will kill you if you don’t have it removed. This is the tool that’s going to remove it. Everyone will need to get a mole removed, and Jakes here is the one who’s going to do it.”

  I extend the dual-bladed sword to Hawthorne. He takes it, examining it closely. “This is . . . handy,” he says, in awe.

  I turn to my Star friend. “Jakes, anyone who comes to you wanting a mole removed, you give him the means to remove it. If he needs to do it on credit, you extend him credit. Do you understand?”

  “How many moles are you expecting to remove?”

  “An entire regiment’s.”

  Hawthorne and I haggle with Jakes over the price of the new sword. He has already made two of them, and I intend to take them both. “When can you have more ready?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “I’m going to need more help—parts—time.”

  “Do what you can. Also, look into converting existing fusion-powered rifles to hydrogen. We’ll need hydrogen magazines. If you can think of a way to make it work, I might be able to get a message to Clifton Salloway.”

  Hawthorne grasps my arm. “Excuse us for a moment,” he growls to Jakes. He drags me a few paces away around the side of a shipping crate. He positions me with my back to the metal box, his face close to mine, his eyes as dark as storm clouds. “What’s going on?”

  “I can’t tell you—you just have to trust me. We have to spread the word about this new weapon, but it has to be a subtle infiltration. Soldiers have to want them because they’re new and in demand, and for no other reason. I don’t know how we’re going to do that, but we have to try.”

  Hawthorne’s expression softens. “You just need to be seen using one, Roselle. That’s all it will take. You’re Roselle St. Sismode. They may pretend to despise you, but they’ve watched you for years and copied your fighting moves, your mannerisms, your style—everything about you.”

  “You’re an influencer, too, Hawthorne. Soldiers follow you because you’re trustworthy.” I grip his biceps. “Use your sword with me tonight. Practice with me, somewhere that we’ll be seen.”

  “You’re acting as if this is a matter of life and death.”

  “I’m not acting.”

  His eyebrows slash together. “I don’t want you to contact Clifton Salloway—for any reason. Is that understood?”

  I drop my hands. “Why not? I’m not going to get personally involved with him. I’m just going to, you know, ask him to mass-produce dual-bladed swords. And maybe a new hydrogen version of a fusionmag. And a fusion rifle with a hydrogen-powered option. And maybe see if he has connections to major airship manufacturers.”

  Hawthorne stares at me like I’m insane. “Roselle, Clifton Salloway is not someone you want to owe a favor.”

  “Hawthorne, I understand firstborns like him. He’s violently bored. He craves purpose. I can give him that purpose.”

  “His purpose will be to get you in bed.”

  “I’ll worry about that later. Right now, we have to make this weapon seem like the only one worth having.”

  Frustration plays upon Hawthorne’s face, but he nods in agreement. “We’re merely tabling this conversation about Salloway for now.”

  “Thank you,” I murmur. He backs away, just a step. I squeeze by him and walk back to Jakes, who is drumming his fingers on the dual-blade’s case.

  He straightens. “I have some ideas about who can help me. It’ll be less expensive to convert existing fusionblades.”

  I agree with a nod. “We focus on conversion, then. Soldiers will have to bring their fusionblades to you.”

  “I’ll get started right away,” Jakes replies.

  “Good. I’ll find you later and check on your progress.” Hawthorne and I turn and move toward a heartwood.

  “You’re a regular arms dealer, Roselle,” Hawthorne says. I want to tell him everything. I want him to know that I’m doing this to protect secondborn Swords because my mother won’t.

  “No, Hawthorne. I’m not an arms dealer,” I say instead. “I’m a privateer.”

  Chapter 14

  Little Fish

  Hawthorne and I face off on the training mats. I want to correct the slope of his sword arm, but I refrain. I’m not here to teach. I’m here to make our new weapons look sexy. The killer-come-to-call stare in his eyes is completely attractive, though. I’m glad we don’t have to fight on a regular basis. I don’t know how he’d take me dominating him, wrestling him to the ground, having my way with him.

  He moves first, stalking me. He has a natural instinct for the dual-blade, holding it in balance, twirling it. That’s a relief. I was worried because he isn’t considered a “Master of Swords,” and I’ve already wrecked one of them. His first strike is a wide-arcing thrust, his golden blade whining through the air. I counter it with a similar move. Because the blades are alike, their golden energy repels. A few soldiers stop their training to watch. I try to make whatever Hawthorne does look valiant and virile. It pains me. I have to clamp down on my ego.

  When he counters with the hydroblade, I do the same, and they repel each other once more. Our silver blades of energy smash with a fantastic hissing. He pivots the fusionblade toward me in a counterstrike. This time, I meet the golden energy of his sword with my weapon’s silver energy, and Hawthorne’s golden fusionblade cuts through my silver hydrogen blade like it’s air. I’m ready for it, and I compensate by dropping to my knees and rolling away. My hydroblade assumes its full length again. I demonstrate a move that could shear off Hawthorne’s ankles, powering the hydroblade down at the last second. A dither of conversation ripples through the crowd.

  We mock-battle for almost an hour. Turn
ing backward tumbles to make his aggressive, lopsided maneuvers look spot-on and deadly, I get a decent workout. The crowd around us chatters excitedly. A few male soldiers approach Hawthorne to congratulate him on a rousing match. One claps him on the shoulder, asking about his weapon. Hawthorne hands it to him, showing him its features.

  By evening, the demonstration is already yielding results. We haven’t even docked yet at the Twilight Forest Base, and Hawthorne has fielded a score of questions about his new weapon. No one has approached me. But the men have begun complaining about the sudden shortage of razors in the locker rooms.

  We dock on a Tree in the Twilight Forest Base around midnight. The jarring bump shakes me awake inside my capsule. My eyes open to darkness. The sinister demons in my dreams were just gathering momentum. Sweat beads on my upper lip. The slaughterhouse scent of the newly dead is still with me. The Gates of Dawn’s strike was over a week ago, but I’m unable to close the door on it.

  I lie awake, shivering. I’m still getting used to my little capsule. It affords me solitude, which is something I crave now, but when I’m inside its hollow shell, the world disappears. I’m lost, a collection of atoms scattered in black space. The darkness wraps around me, and just when I think I’ll go mad from it, the pendulum of fate swings. Bright white light illuminates my capsule. I flinch and blink. Blinded.

  The door of my capsule opens automatically. From the speakers near my head, a feminine voice says, “Attention Tropo soldier, you have been selected for an active duty campaign departing Twilight Base in twenty-nine minutes. Report to Deck 134, Hangar 12 for further instructions.” The message repeats on a continuous loop, counting down the minutes. I shove aside my blanket and rub my eyes. If they want to keep me mean, this is the way to do it.

  I jump from my capsule to the catwalk below. Very few doors are open. I’m alone, save for a few other females in this section. Hawthorne’s capsule remains closed. My moniker vibrates, and I touch the glowing sword. A countdown clock shines upon the holographic sword. I head to the locker room to collect my armor.