Insignia

“Beamer, hey, you okay?”

  It was a stupid question, he knew, but Tom wasn’t sure what to say when he dropped to the other boy’s side. Slick blood bubbled over the stones around his armored legs, and Beamer’s frantic eyes moved up to his. He tried speaking, gurgled something like “help,” and then doubled over with racking coughs. Blood splattered from his mouth.

  Tom knelt there, frozen, his heart thumping in his ears. He couldn’t seem to move, like an icy hand clutched him in place. Footsteps clattered toward him, and a firm pair of dark hands grappled with Beamer’s thrashing body.

  “What’s wrong?” Elliot demanded, taking charge.

  “I don’t—we don’t know,” Tom stuttered.

  “Beamer?” Elliot called, pinning Beamer’s shoulders. “Beamer? Stephen?”

  Tom felt Beamer’s blood drying on his hands and watched Elliot asking Beamer what was the matter as though it wasn’t obvious. He heard Beamer gurgling, whimpering, and watched him twisting back and forth, trying escape the pain, escape the hands on him.

  Then Elliot raised his gauntleted hand and waved his arm in a sequence—up and down, up and down, left and right, up and down. It was a sequence of muscular impulses designed to signal the neural processor and terminate any active simulations. Elliot’s brow furrowed, and he tried it again with his other arm. He dropped them both to his side, baffled. “I can’t turn off the sim.”

  Beamer shrieked, and kept shrieking, and Tom looked between Elliot and Beamer. Elliot was waving both arms now like he was in a surreal dance, and Beamer kept giving these gurgling cries of pain, and the sim kept on going.

  “I’ve got it,” Tom realized suddenly. Of course! This would boot Beamer right out of the sim. He unsheathed his sword, and hacked off Beamer’s head.

  Elliot scuttled to his feet with a shout, dark blood splashing over the stones around them.

  “There,” Tom said, pleased with himself for the quick thinking.

  Elliot stared at him, openmouthed.

  The look on his face and the uncertainty of the moment flooded Tom with horror. He suddenly remembered some movie he’d seen where people died in a video game and then died in real life . . . just like this. He’d just killed Beamer in their malfunctioning sim, and what if it was a serious malfunction and he was dead in the training room, too?

  “Oh God, he was really feeling pain,” Tom cried, the enormity of his mistake crashing over him. “You don’t think he really died, too, do you?”

  “No,” Elliot said at once.

  “I killed him. I killed Beamer!”

  “Tom, the program messes up every few months. I’ve seen it happen a dozen times. People never die from sims.”

  Tom stood there, breathless in the hot Trojan sun, gazing down at headless body of his friend, still thinking of that movie. He couldn’t remember the name. He didn’t know why it mattered so much, but he couldn’t stop wondering what the name was. His whole body was shaking.

  Elliot clasped his shoulder. “It’s fine. Beamer’s out of the sim and he’s fine. You did the right thing. You did not kill him. I’ll stop this sim, and you’ll see.” He waved his arm again, trying to end it, his brow furrowed.

  “You’re really sure he’s not dead out there?” Tom asked again.

  “Tom, I’m positive,” Elliot said with a laugh. “He’s okay.”

  Tom just gazed up into the blue sky overhead, feeling the wind flapping through his hair. Relief crashed through him. He found himself laughing. “Wow. You know, I really freaked out for a second there,” he told Elliot, even though Elliot seemed to be preoccupied with the issue of the sim not responding to his command and turning itself off. “I seriously thought it. I seriously thought for a second that I’d killed Beam—”

  And then the world exploded around them.

  Tom felt like he was hurling through space, weightless. He couldn’t hear his own scream over the crashing in his ears. Stone scraped his hand, so he grasped whatever he could—and it tore off the skin of his fingers as he dragged himself to a halt. Black dust blotted out the sky, stung his lungs. It thinned just enough to reveal the broken walls of the city and Elliot coughing where he clung to the wall above him.

  Tom’s arms stung as he slipped farther, and a glance below told him his legs were dangling down toward the flat plains. A firm hand gripped under his arm, and he knew it was Elliot. “Come on!”

  Tom grabbed Elliot’s arm, and managed to hoist himself back up onto the remains of the wall. Shouts filled the air. The Greek army below them surged forward through the blown-out chunk of wall to claim Troy.

  Elliot stared down, naked disbelief on his face. “That is not supposed to happen. There’s supposed to be a Trojan Horse, not an explosion.”

  And then came the ping in both their brains: Program integrity externally breached.

  Comprehension flooded Elliot’s face. “It’s an incursion.”

  An incursion!

  Suddenly it all made sense.

  Suddenly it wasn’t scary. Tom looked down through the dust, blinking it out of his eyes as it stung his pupils, his brain suddenly thrumming with excitement. An incursion!

  He’d heard of the Spire version of incursions. They’d happened more often three years ago, when the first batch of trainees joined the Intrasolar Forces. The Russo-Chinese hackers couldn’t penetrate too deeply into the Spire’s systems, but they could get into superficial, less secure areas—such as the Applied Sims programs. Combatants sometimes hacked into the American Applied Simulations channel and pranked them by playing the part of the enemy, even switching on the Indo-American pain receptors, because that was really the worst damage they could wreak.

  In the first year of the program, it apparently happened every few months. None of the Indo-American trainees knew how to hack, so there was no reciprocation, and the Obsidian Corp. software consultants couldn’t write code for answering attacks due to private business agreements with the Russo-Chinese neural processor manufacturer, LM Lymer Fleet. That was one thing that changed once Blackburn arrived. The first incursion attempt on his watch, he sent them something back to them—no one knew what. He also upgraded the firewall. The incursions had stopped . . . until now. Maybe the Russo-Chinese victory near Neptune convinced them to try it again.

  “There has to be a way to end this program,” Elliot insisted, still waving his arm in the command gesture.

  But Tom didn’t want this to end. He gazed transfixed down at the field, knowing those weren’t virtual opponents. Those were real enemies. Enemies who had tampered with the program to make it as real as possible. Kept the pain sensations on. Blocked their escape.

  If Russo-Chinese Combatants were here . . .

  Medusa might be here.

  The greatest warrior in the world could be in the same simulation as Tom. Right in reach of him. And he was just standing here, a useless sentry, removed from the battle.

  “Yes! I’m getting the exit option now!” Elliot gave a relieved laugh. He turned to Tom. “Is the exit sequence working for you, or do I need to unplug you once I’m out?”

  “Wait.” Tom turned on him, electric with determination. “Don’t go yet. Let’s fight them, Elliot. Come on. You and me. Hector and . . . and random sentry person. Let’s take on the Greeks. Let’s take on the Russo-Chinese.”

  “You want to stay?” Elliot stared at him. He obviously hadn’t even considered that option. “The pain receptors are on full, Tom. You saw Stephen. Getting stabbed here feels like getting stabbed.”

  “I’ll risk it! Elliot, come on already. This could be incredible! Let’s show ’em Americans aren’t cowards!”

  Below them, the people in the city were screaming as they were cut down by the invading army.

  “Come on, Elliot,” Tom said. “This is my only chance. You get to fight these people all the time. I may never be CamCo. I may never get to fight them in real life.”

  “This means that much to you?”

  “Look, come on. I’ll do anything
. I’ll . . . Hey, I’ll pay fealty. You want fealty? You’ll get all the fealty you can handle. Just don’t unplug me!”

  Elliot shook his head, exasperated—and Tom would swear, amused. “You were born in the wrong era, Tom. You should’ve been a berserker. Fine. I won’t unplug you. But go as a combat character.” And with a wave of his hand, Tom’s body transformed.

  He was about to murder Elliot for turning him into a girl again, but he realized that this girl character was the best warrior yet unclaimed in the sim: Penthesilea, queen of the Amazons.

  Elliot saluted him. “Don’t embarrass your country, Plebe.”

  “No, sir!”

  “And I didn’t even have to wrangle that ‘sir’ out of you, huh? Well, that’ll do for fealty,” Elliot said with a grin and vanished from the sim.

  And so it was left to Tom, the lone, nonvirtual defender of Troy, against the entire Greek army. He whirled around, the grandeur of the moment sweeping over him. He didn’t care that he was probably going to be skewered and end up as miserable as Beamer. He didn’t even care that it was going to hurt. This was his time of glory.

  He watched the attackers and waited for that one. That one person to show up, the fighter he’d know anywhere.

  And when he spotted him through the churning mass of the army, the clouds of dust, and the rippling waves of heat, Tom knew him at once.

  Medusa was playing Achilles. The mightiest warrior in the world of today was fighting as the most fearsome warrior of the ancient world.

  It was so fitting Tom could’ve cheered.

  But instead, he caught sight of a stray horse, riderless, panicked with flight, galloping across the dusty ground below him. He timed his leap, and landed right on its back. It was easy in Penthesilea’s battle-hardened body. Using her powerful legs, Tom steered the horse’s massive body, launched them toward the battle. He kicked its haunches and plunged them into the bloodshed.

  Tom ignored the warriors boiling about him. They were mere obstacles blocking his way to Medusa. He needed to attract Medusa’s attention, so he tried to pick out the other Russo-Chinese Combatants among the virtual soldiers.

  He recognized Rusalka, known as Svetlana Moriakova, the Russian answer to Elliot Ramirez and the only public Russo-Chinese Combatant. She was playing Agamemnon, and she betrayed herself in the way she hung back and tried to ensure others took the brunt of the fighting. Tom had seen enough past CamCo battles to recognize the tactic on sight. He raised his bow and arrow, caught her eye, and winked. Just as the surprise washed over her face, his arrow impaled her throat.

  He found Red Terror next, playing Odysseus, a guy who betrayed his identity by the way he cut down the strays, the stragglers, the weakest. Just like Red Terror when he fought in space—always attacking the soft spot first. Tom clutched his bow in his left hand, drew his sword with his right, and hacked off Red Terror’s head as he careened past him.

  Then he saw the Combatant Kalashnikov, playing Patrocles, recognizable by the way he played dirty and killed Tom’s horse beneath him. Tom leaped clear of the screaming, thrashing creature, rolled to his feet, and drove his sword through Kalashnikov’s eye.

  That’s when Medusa saw Tom.

  Medusa charged through the armies in his chariot. With a jerk of the reins, Medusa brought the chariot to a halt just meters away, dust swirling up in a great cloud around his gleaming armor.

  Tom just stood there, sword in hand, a huge grin on his lips. He stared at Medusa and Medusa stared at him, and in this moment that made his dreams come true, Tom could only think of one thing to say.

  “How’s it going?”

  As soon as he spoke, he regretted how stupid he must’ve sounded.

  Medusa’s eyes raked over him. “You didn’t run with the others.”

  “I’d never run from you.”

  “I’d call you courageous,” Medusa said, “but I suspect you may be very stupid.”

  Tom laughed, feeling almost giddy, because this was really happening. “Got me in one guess . . . Medusa.”

  Medusa jerked a bit. “You know me.”

  “I’d know you anywhere,” Tom confessed. “I think about you all the time.” He knew how creepy and stalkerish that had to sound, but he didn’t care.

  “You seem a bit deranged,” Medusa remarked.

  Tom shrugged. “That’s fair.”

  And then Medusa charged.

  Tom knew he didn’t stand a chance in the open. He scrambled into the midst of the massing armies to buy some time. He cast his eyes around for some advantage, then spotted the concave shield of a dead Greek, aware of Medusa fighting through the Trojan army to get him like some relentless angel of death. As the rumbling of the wheels mounted to a roar in his ears, and the shadow of the chariot blotted out the sun around him, Tom twisted around, angled the shield, raising his sword above it—and blared sunlight right into Medusa’s eyes.

  Medusa was blinded just as he flung his javelin. His wild throw sent it whizzing by Tom’s ear.

  Tom hurled the shield at Medusa, unbalancing him. He leaped forward, lashed out with his sword and drove it through the neck of one of the chariot’s horses. Red Terror wasn’t the only one who could play dirty.

  The horse tumbled to the earth with a scream. It thrashed to the dusty ground, toppling the second horse and careening the chariot onto its side. Tom leaped clear of the vehicle, saw Medusa doing the same—hurling himself clear of the wreckage. With a whoop of triumph, Tom tore after the struggling warrior, ready to impale Medusa before he could regain his sword.

  Medusa resorted to using the only weapon in reach: a cloud of sand that stung Tom’s eyes, blinding him in that critical second. Tom’s sword sank into the ground, and a kick to his stomach reeled him back to the ground, knocking the breath from his body.

  And then Medusa was on his feet, blade flashing toward Tom’s head. Tom rolled out of the way, thankful for Penthesilea’s agility. He scrambled back up and blocked Medusa’s next blow with his sword. And then the next. But Medusa pressed relentlessly, his raw strength overwhelming Penthesilea’s. Tom’s arms buckled beneath the bone-jarring clang, and he twisted out of the way of the blade just in time. When Medusa’s next blow came, Tom let his arms give out entirely beneath the power of it and used the momentum to spin himself around. He drew a bloody gash on Medusa’s back, and then leaped back before Medusa’s blade could swivel around and gut him.

  They faced each other, fighting for breath. And then Medusa whirled away from him—and just as Tom moved to pursue, Medusa whipped back around and tossed something into the air. Tom felt a tickling around his legs, and looked down to see the chariot’s reins twined in a loop around his limbs.

  He slashed downward with his sword to cut the makeshift lasso, but it was too late—Medusa jerked the reins to tighten them, tumbling Tom to the ground. Them Medusa leaped onto the remaining horse and kicked it into a gallop, the reins dragging Tom across the ground behind it. Sand scorched a raw path down his side. A wild slash of his sword finally severed the rope, and he thumped down to the earth, breathless.

  Medusa galloped a distance, then swung back around—the sunlight gleaming off his steel helmet and armor.

  Tom raised himself to his shaky legs, kicking away the remains of the reins, his sword aloft, waiting. Waiting. His strength was wearing thin, his breath ragged, his body on fire where his skin had been torn off by scraping across the ground. This couldn’t last much longer.

  And then Medusa charged. His horse galloped faster and faster, grunting with the speed. Tom readied himself for the last assault as the clattering hooves filled his ears and the dust blotted out his vision, and then at the last moment, Medusa leaped off the horse—leaving the animal to careen into Tom in an explosion of thrashing hooves and muscle. A blow to his ribs, to his torso—acid burned through him when something ruptured.

  Tom dragged himself clear. Fire burned inside his torso, and each gasp at air felt like a dagger stabbing him. One of his lungs had collapsed.
His breaths were gurgles as the shadow of Achilles strode over the sand toward him. He saw the shadowy sword rise and then arc down into him.

  It didn’t hurt at first. At first. And then Medusa tore out the bloody blade, kicked Tom over onto his back, and loomed above him, a black figure in a halo of sunlight. A nuclear meltdown was happening in his torso. Tom’s scream was a gurgle as molten agony consumed him, radiating to his limbs, tearing at every nerve. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe. . . .

  Medusa knelt down next to him. “I’m sure you now wish you’d left with the others.”

  Tom’s vision darkened around the edges, his body arcing in pain in a futile fight for oxygen, and the plume of Medusa’s helmet grew larger and darker as he leaned even closer to watch him die. Tom was half aware of Medusa’s hand lifting the back of his leaden head, sliding his helmet off to let his bloody hair spill out—Achilles taking a moment to gaze down at the dying Penthesilea. And as Tom’s consciousness tunneled away, he thought he saw Medusa’s lips curl into a slow smile—and through his agony, he twisted his lips into a bloody grin of his own.

  You’re everything I dreamed you’d be.

  The last thing he felt was Medusa’s hands cupping his head, cradling it until he slipped away into the darkness.

  TOM’S EYES SNAPPED open in the simulation chamber.

  Elliot was seated at the end of his cot, arms folded. The rest of the simulation group was gathered around behind him, staring down at Tom like he was some weird science project. When Tom tried to sit up, a bunch of hands helped him.

  He groped at his aching head. Elliot hopped down and strode over, dark eyebrows raised. “Your heart rate went a bit crazy there toward the end. We were worried. How’d it go?”

  “Took out Kalashnikov, Red Terror, and Rusalka.”

  Elliot laughed. “Rusalka, taken out by a plebe. I’m going to rub that in Svetlana’s face next time we’re at the same PR event.”

  “Then Medusa got me.”

  Elliot shocked him by clapping his shoulder. “Good job, Tom.”

  Tom found himself grinning back. Elliot had let him stay, had given him a chance to face Medusa. He was amazed. Somehow he couldn’t imagine thinking of Elliot as Dorkmirez ever again.