Insignia

  “And, Tom, if you have doubts, you can decline,” Olivia added.

  Marsh gave a crisp nod. “That’s right, son. Give me the word, and we’ll have you back at the Dusty Squanto with your old man. You signed a confidentiality agreement on the plane, and we’ll hold you to keeping what you’ve seen here to yourself, but I don’t think that will be hard for you. What’s important is, you come into this with your eyes wide open.”

  Tom couldn’t speak for a long while. His dad’s words returned to him, unbidden: “You know how the military treats its people, Tom? They chew them up and spit them out, that’s how. You’re just another piece of equipment to them.”

  Equipment. A computer was a piece of equipment. He would be equipment.

  “That’s the only way I can do this?” Tom blurted.

  “The only way. Without the neural processor, you’re useless to us.”

  And Marsh had waited until now, until now—after Tom had turned on his father, pressured him into signing the consent form, flown across the country, and gotten his hopes up so high he’d been soaring in the stratosphere—to drop this bomb. It was manipulative. Tom didn’t need some computer in his head to see that. If there was one thing he hated, it was feeling like a chump.

  “Maybe this isn’t for me.” Tom watched Marsh’s face as he spoke, relishing the shock that washed over the old features. The general thought he’d hooked him. Thought he would feel he had no choice anymore. He felt a surge of vindictive satisfaction at proving him wrong.

  “Well, son. That’s unexpected. That’s, well . . .” Marsh seemed to be fumbling for something to say.

  “He’s made his decision,” Olivia said, triumph in her voice. “Take him home, Terry.”

  The words sent panic skittering through Tom, because he wanted this life at the Pentagonal Spire. He wanted it ferociously. But he couldn’t just be some chump tricked into it. He’d never forgive himself. He’d rather gouge out his own eyes than let Marsh get away with manipulating him.

  Marsh studied him for a long, tense moment. Then he said, “I’ll tell you what, Tom, how about I give you some time to think it over?”

  Tom could have laughed. He’d bluffed and won. He’d forced Marsh to give in a bit. The tension eased in his muscles. He hadn’t let the general totally snow him. “Fine. I’ll think.”

  Marsh seemed to relax, too. He held out a shiny black keycard, his watery eyes searching Tom’s face, trying to gauge how serious he was about resisting the idea of joining up. “Ms. Ossare, why don’t you escort Tom down to the mess hall? There are some meal points on this card. Have a bite to eat. On me. When you feel ready to make your decision, click on the pager.”

  Tom glanced at the keycard and turned it in his hand for effect. “And if I say no, I get to leave?”

  “Yes, Raines.” Marsh’s voice grew gruff.

  “He’s legally obligated to allow it,” Olivia added.

  Tom raised his eyes to hers and returned her smile with a quick one of his own. “Fine. I hope there are a lot of credits on this. I’m starved.”

  Marsh’s look of irritation made it all the better.

  TOM SETTLED AT a table in the mess hall directly beneath a row of screens in sleep mode and a large oil painting of a man with a plaque that proclaimed him General George S. Patton. He stared up at the gruff face of the general, an empty meal tray sitting on the tabletop before him. He didn’t actually feel like taking it over and grabbing food. His head began to ache. He found himself wishing his dad was around.

  Then again, if Neil had been there when General Marsh pulled that oh,-I forgot-to-mention-the-computer-in-your-head-earlier thing, he would’ve exploded. Maybe punched him. And that probably wouldn’t have helped matters at all.

  Tom scrubbed a hand through his hair. What was the matter with him? He couldn’t turn this down. And he shouldn’t take it personally. Marsh probably had some standard military recruitment playbook: get the kids away from their parents, get them to the Spire, get their hopes up, and then spring the big surprise-brain-surgery thing.

  He held up the keycard and idly turned it back and forth, watching it glint in the light. Knowing he was being manipulated didn’t make him feel any better about it.

  “If you’re not going to use those meal credits, can I?”

  The voice startled him. Tom swung his head up and caught his breath. It took him a long moment to remember the English language and the fact that he was capable of using it.

  “So that wasn’t an avatar.”

  “Nope.” Heather Akron was impossibly prettier in person, with her dark brown hair escaping its loose ponytail, her yellow-brown eyes like no color he’d seen naturally before. This time, she wore military fatigues—camouflage trousers and a black tunic. The bald eagle insignia of the Intrasolar Forces was on her collar, and beneath it were four triangular points stacked on top of one another, like the tips of arrows shooting upward. “Yours isn’t an avatar, either,” she teased.

  “No.” It wasn’t so funny this time, knowing she was seeing him up close.

  “May I?” She gestured to the keycard.

  “It’s the general’s. Go nuts.”

  Heather’s eyes twinkled as she took it. “Thanks. I used up my snack allotment for this week on lattes. It’s so bad, but I can’t say no to myself sometimes.”

  “You don’t have to. Say no to yourself, I mean . . . about lattes.” He stumbled over the words as she leaned in closer—close enough for her breath to brush his skin.

  “How about General Marsh buys us both a drink, Tom?”

  “That’s a great idea.” As long as Heather said his name like that while smiling at him like that, he’d agree that jumping in a nuclear reactor was a great idea, too.

  Heather winked. “Perfect!” And she swept off to the coffee stand across the mess hall.

  He watched her hips sway away and tried to think of witty things to say when she finally returned, even though he knew after that, she’d be gone. Beautiful girls didn’t hang around to talk to short, ugly guys with bad acne.

  So he was all the more astonished a few moments later when she lowered herself across the table from him and slid a drink his way, her fingers poking out of the holes of what looked like biker gloves or something. He could see the Intrasolar Forces insignia on her palm, too. He knew what that bald eagle insignia looked like with his eyes closed. He’d seen it on the internet, on the news—and it represented something that had always been an impossibility to him. He knew he was crazy, even hesitating like this.

  “I know I should cut back,” Heather lamented, sipping at her drink, “but I’m such a caffeine addict. I just love how wired it leaves me.”

  “Yeah,” Tom agreed, unsure what he was agreeing with, and took an overlarge gulp of the drink she’d given him. The hot liquid singed his tongue.

  “So how about it, Tom? Are you going to be a plebe soon?”

  He wasn’t sure how to answer that.

  “Oh, but I saw how you handled that tank simulation,” Heather went on. “I bet you won’t be a plebe for long. There are promotions twice a year, and I bet you’ll move quickly to Middle Company. After that, it’s Upper Company, and then, if you can network with the right people and get a corporate sponsor, you’ll join the Combatant group—Camelot Company. We’re called CamCo here.”

  Tom straightened. “We?”

  “Uh-huh. I’m in Camelot Company.”

  He gaped at her. He’d probably seen her in action, too. Probably seen clips of her on the internet. “What’s your call sign? Have I heard of you?”

  “Well, I’m a newer Combatant, but maybe you have. I go by Enigma.”

  Enigma. He’d heard of her! She was sponsored by Wyndham Harks, and he remembered this time on Jupiter’s moon Io . . . Oh, and that time on Saturn’s moon Titan, when . . . A half-dozen battles from the last few months flipped through his head. Tom just gaped at her. “I can’t believe it. You’re one of the best. I remember that time you guys were fighting
on Titan, when you—”

  Heather laughed, and grabbed his hand to stop him. The physical contact was something of a shock to Tom, because it was nothing like VR.

  “Tom, that’s so sweet of you to say, but this isn’t about me right now. It’s about you. It’s about the choice you’re going to make today.”

  “Right. Right.” His attention was riveted to the way her thumb stroked across his knuckles.

  “I bet I know why you’re hesitant. You haven’t signed up yet because you’re freaked out by this, right?” She tapped at her temple, indicating the implanted processor.

  “I wouldn’t say ‘freaked out.’ I’m not freaked out.”

  Her voice grew softer, her touch still tickling along his skin. “You sure? It’s okay to tell me. I can answer any questions you have.”

  And suddenly, Tom knew why she just happened to be here, of all possible people in the Pentagonal Spire. He knew.

  He pulled his hand back and grabbed his drink. Globs of whipped cream were melting into the light brown liquid. He could see Marsh’s invisible hand in this. The old guy had sent Heather here: a gorgeous girl to talk Tom into agreeing to get his skull split open. This was more of Marsh trying to play him for a sucker.

  “I know what you must be wondering.” Heather paused and bit her bottom lip. Despite himself, Tom stared at the pink flesh, his mouth suddenly dry. “I worried about it, too. I thought maybe after I got the neural processor in my head, the voice in my brain might disappear and get replaced by some robotic thing, like, ‘Good morning, Dave.’”

  Gorgeous and a science fiction geek. She was a living, breathing fantasy.

  “But it’s not like that, Tom. I’m still me. I’m just a better me.”

  “Look,” Tom told her, before she could go on with the pitch, “it’s not the computer itself I have a problem with. I’m not even so worried about being a different person. It’s just . . . You know, Marsh didn’t mention any of this brain-surgery stuff until after he was pretty sure I was set on this. It’s the way he did it.”

  Her amber eyes stayed fixed upon his. “You feel manipulated?”

  “I feel like he’s trying to manipulate me. I mean, would you be talking to me right now if he hadn’t sent you?”

  Heather rested her chin in her palm. “Of course he’s trying to manipulate you, Tom.”

  Tom blinked, surprised she’d just admitted that.

  “General Marsh even ordered me to come here and talk you into it, just as you guessed. Can you blame him? He doesn’t want you to turn this down after you’ve found out the big secret about the neural processors.” She tapped a finger thoughtfully on her lips, studying him. “Good thing you won’t.”

  “I won’t?” Tom said, feeling out of his depth with her.

  “Mmm, no. You won’t,” Heather said matter-of-factly. “You know exactly what it means if you come here. They stick an expensive, multimillion-dollar computer in your head. They invest tens of millions more training you. Then they give you control of billions of dollars of military machinery and a critical role in the country’s war effort. You’re valuable. So yes, the military has an agenda when it comes to dealing with you. And so does General Marsh. But that’s really what you have to put up with if you want to be one of us. The question is, Tom, do you want to be one of us?” She leaned closer, her eyes gripping his. “Do you want to be somebody important?”

  And there it was.

  There it was.

  Tom leaned back in his seat and tipped his drink to Heather—but really to salute the man who wasn’t there but who had just won this match. Well played, General Marsh. Well played.

  Because, more than anything, Tom wanted to do something. Something other than move casino to casino, something other than turn into his dad.

  He’d give anything to be important.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  .....................................................................

  Chapter Four

  WHAT SEEMED A timeless period later, it realized something was different.

  It held itself very still and tried to comprehend what was happening.

  Its brain was humming at a different frequency somehow, its thoughts meaningless yet logical. It blinked at the strange yet familiar symbols running through its awareness—the periodic table of elements—and recognized through some hazy curtain the chemical configuration of the anesthetic in its system. Proparacane.

  There was a trail of 1s and 0s, data signals moving through wires, and it followed them into what seemed an endless maze of electric pulses swapping back and forth. It became a security camera in Rio de Janeiro, gazing upon a large Jesus statue with arms flung wide over a vast, rolling city. Infrared sensors alerted the security camera to the presence of organic beings moving around the statue. The 0s and 1s were leaving there, and it followed them to an autonav system in a vehicle winding down a highway in Bombay. A flexure of its will could send this car off the road, but it knew better. The autonav had strict parameters that dictated its actions when it was this autonav.

  And then it followed the next stream and settled in the filtration system in a reservoir in Northern California. Through a process of facilitated diffusion, it absorbed organic solutes and then bound them into an inactive compound. Water slapped and dashed at osmotic pressure sensors. But this wasn’t right, either.

  It found the Grand Canyon and managed to stay there in the security network, frightened by the knowledge that this wasn’t what it was, either. It remained there, a sensory ghost analyzing the perimeter and linking on and off like firing neurons with the autonavs of the visitor cars. It lurked in the fizzling thermal sensors overlooking the snoring security guard with boots propped up on the desk, watching the creature, analyzing the being’s temperature (98.5° F). Strange to regard the human mammal with its vast tangle of chemical processes and the steady thump of the heartbeat (76 beats per minute) and the . . .

  Human.

  That was right.

  It was human.

  It was human. Why was it . . . Why was he so confused? Why was he drifting like this?

  He. He was it. It was he. He knew who “he” was.

  Tom Raines. Tom. Tom. Tom.

  Tom clung to this sudden awareness of self, waiting for reality to resolve back into an existence he understood. He remembered things, just for a moment: The sedative he’d swallowed. Being woozy in the operating room. His head being shaved and washed—and being told it was an “antiseptic practice to avoid infection.” Heather tapping on the glass wall of the surgical suite and giving him a wave good-bye. The way seeing her made him smile as they strapped a mask on his face . . .

  The thought connected him with his body, his sensory receptors, and for a frightening moment, he experienced utter numbness. His hand twitched on the metal table, and he heard a voice inside his eardrum, noting the spike in his neural activity.

  “. . . centered on the orbitofrontal cortex. Is he aware of us?”

  “That’s not possible,” said another voice. “These instruments can be faulty. I’ve requested new ones out of Denver. Do you remember that girl Lily?”

  But there was something else there, too, something with him—something not Tom.

  0100010001111100101001010000101110110001100001001011111001010100 . . .

  A number that seemed to stretch into infinity. So foreign, so alien, he jerked away from it. But then it felt like he’d been caught in a tsunami, because a great wave crashed over him and swept him back into that ocean of machines swapping signals. . . .

  A sense of vastness pressed in on him. It hummed all around him in a tangle of infinite complexity: the security camera in Rio and the Grand Canyon and the reservoir filtration system and four billion car autonavs and hundreds of billions of text messages and stray data bits and computers pinging and games swapping signals and machines sending them from space and satellites and security systems of a billion different .
. .

  “Stop! Stop!” Tom’s voice never left his mouth. That body remained still on the table, its lips frozen, its muscles like lead, its hands cold, its head chilled because it was shaved. Voices chattered on, oblivious to it, and that computer in its brain offered logic and order, and kept restructuring, restructuring him . . . and that dreadful pull of signals threatened to sweep him away into infinity itself. . . .

  AND THEN TOM opened his eyes in the infirmary. He was in Section 1C3 of the Pentagonal Spire. He knew that because the red number glowed in the bottom right corner of his vision for a split second before vanishing. He stared up at the bars of fluorescent light hanging overhead, and then a round, friendly face appeared above his.

  “Feeling better today, Mr. Raines?”

  Tom blinked, because something strange was happening. He saw the man’s face, but he also saw text, scrolling rapidly through his brain.

  NAME: Jason Chang

  RANK: Lieutenant, BSN

  GRADE: USAF 0-3, active duty

  SECURITY STATUS: Top Secret LANDLOCK-6

  Tom blinked again, and the text was gone, leading him to wonder if he’d imagined it.

  “Tom,” said Jason Chang, drawing his attention back to the present. “Can you tell me your full name?”

  “Thomas Raines.”

  Lieutenant Chang flashed a penlight in his eyes. “Do you know where you are?”

  “The Pentagonal Spire.”

  “That’s right. Do you know why you are here?”

  “Surgery. To get a neural processor implanted.”

  “Tell me, what’s my name and security designation?”