Vortex

  Then I’ll enjoy having a word with Wyatt Enslow, Heather thought viciously.

  Wyatt did her job. You were the one who messed up.

  I shouldn’t get him thinking about this or he’ll warn her. Hey, Tom, did you know we’re right on course to pass over the Great Red Spot?

  Tom was entirely distracted. Awesome, he thought. So awesome.

  He stared, dazzled, through the vessel’s electronic eyes as the massive red spot of Jupiter slipped around the vast curvature of the planet. He gazed at the livid clouds. His neural processor told him the hurricane was three times the size of Earth, and it had raged for hundreds of years.

  And then, it happened.

  The harvester they were escorting plunged out of their sensor range. Then the other harvesters hurtled toward Jupiter. CamCo vessels began to follow. Tom saw Cadence Grey’s ship diving in a suicidal course for Jupiter. Yosef Saide’s ship veered after them, then collided with Elliot’s ship, blasting them both to pieces.

  Wait, Heather thought. Wait, wait, wait. Something’s wrong.

  And suddenly, it was their turn. Their thrusters roared to life and fired, propelling them straight toward Jupiter in a death charge.

  Uh, Heather? Tom thought as that swirling red mass of storms grew larger and larger. You should aim us somewhere else. The ship began shaking violently as Jupiter’s gravity exerted more and more of a pull on them, and he felt Heather trying to fight whatever force it was that had seized control of their navigation.

  Through the sensors of their ship, he could see more and more CamCo vessels veering in fatal death plunges, heat shields blasted by the friction with Jupiter’s atmosphere.

  Oh my God, I’m not in control of the ship, Heather thought. I think we’ve been hijacked.

  Tom felt a thrill of excitement and worry.

  Their own heat shields lit as they plunged into Jupiter’s outer atmosphere, the vessel jolting furiously, pressure mounting on a hull not designed for atmospheric travel. They burned hotter and hotter as they plunged deeper into Jupiter’s gaseous mass, gravity accelerating them to a lethal speed.

  Soon, gravity began to buckle their hull, and the red clouds on all sides began to tear at them, battering them with vicious, six-hundred-kilometer-per-hour winds. In the fleeting moments before their destruction, Tom focused on the buzzing in his processor and leaped out into the vessel, interfacing with it, momentarily dazzled by the alarms blaring in every system as Jupiter consumed it.

  And then, for a microsecond, maybe two, his brain met another person’s, a neural processor that wasn’t his, that wasn’t Heather’s, interfacing with their ship and directing its death plunge. Shock suffused Tom. Who was . . .

  At that moment, their vessel was obliterated, snapping Tom back into his body in the Pentagonal Spire.

  ALL THE TRAINEES were ordered to the cell adjoining the Census Chamber, and one by one, they were escorted in to have their memories of the event extracted.

  The guard poked in his head, calling for the next trainee. “Covner, you’re up. Martin, you’ll be next.” Walton rose and followed him from the room.

  Tom’s stomach was in knots. No one had used the census device on him since Blackburn had interrogated him for treason. The Middles around him chattered away.

  “I’ve never had the census device used on me,” Jennifer Nguyen said.

  “Oh, it’s straightforward,” Lyla told her. “You think about something, then the memory uploads. It’s sort of cool.”

  Tom started laughing. He couldn’t help it. He ignored the dirty looks the two girls sent him and kept staring at that door, feeling like a mass of nerves. Yes, he knew this wasn’t going to be like the last time he’d sat under that metal claw with Blackburn at the controls. He really did. Intellectually. But the very idea of there being anything cool about the machine that had nearly driven him insane struck him as hilarious.

  He forced himself to stop laughing and leaned back against the wall—the wall of the same cell where he’d been confined for two days. It was also the waiting room for those scheduled for memory viewing. His eyes kept straying to the spot he’d punched, over and over, while his mind was fraying.

  “Guys, think,” Vik proclaimed, a crazy glint in his eyes as everyone swung their attention toward him. He spread his arms. “We became brave new pioneers in human history: we were all brutally Jupitered today.”

  “Jupitered?” Lyla echoed.

  “Killed by Jupiter,” Vik explained. “No other warships have crashed into Jupiter before. Ours are the first.”

  In the corner where she was sitting, back to the wall, Wyatt spoke up, “Elliot and I weren’t.”

  Vik sent her a startled glace. “You guys didn’t get destroyed?”

  “No, we did get destroyed. Elliot and I were hit by Yosef’s ship when he started to plunge into Jupiter,” Wyatt explained.

  “So you were Jupitered.”

  “Yosef killed us, not Jupiter.”

  “So you were Yosef’d—because of Jupiter,” Vik said.

  “Because of kinetic energy!”

  “Kinetic energy directly caused by the gravity of Jupiter.” Vik clenched his fists before him. “The most diabolical planet of them all.”

  “That’s so stupid, Vik. Jupiter isn’t diabolical. It’s a gas giant, and we owe it our lives. A lot of asteroids that could cause mass extinction on Earth hit Jupiter instead of us because of Jupiter’s gravity.”

  Vik shook his head. “You forget, Enslow: a lot of asteroids that wouldn’t even end up anywhere near Earth get redirected toward Earth by Jupiter’s gravity. If human beings never move beyond this planet, odds are, we’ll all get wiped out by a meteor someday, perhaps even a meteor that only reaches us because of that gas giant you so eagerly defend. All humanity could be Jupitered one day. That’s as diabolical as it gets.”

  She rolled her eyes. “If you want to talk about future doom, then one day the sun will use up its hydrogen, turn into a red giant, and destroy our planet anyway. Does that mean the sun is evil?”

  “We won’t get sunned for a few billion years, Evil Wench. We could all get Jupitered tomorrow.”

  “Stop saying ‘Jupitered.’ It’s not even a word! You made it up.”

  “Now I’m getting Wyatted,” Vik complained to Tom.

  “Stop making up any words!” Wyatt cried. “It’s so annoying!”

  Lyla spoke up. “You guys are both annoying.”

  Wyatt looked hurt, Vik grinned proudly, and Tom started laughing again. He wasn’t sure why, but he felt strange, almost giddy, more so every second he waited.

  “You, too,” Lyla said to him. “You, especially, Raines. Nothing is funny. Stop laughing. We get it. You’re freaked out. Boo hoo.”

  Tom stopped laughing. “I’m not freaked out.”

  Lyla mimed crying and adopted a whiny voice: “Oh no, I am so, so scared of the census device.”

  “I am not scared of the census device!”

  Lyla smirked. Vik grew indignant on Tom’s behalf and pointed at her. “You’re wrong, Martin. Dead wrong. The only thing Tom fears is proper table etiquette.”

  “Yeah,” Tom agreed. Then, to Vik, “Hey!”

  Vik gave a laugh that sounded like a giggle, and then the door to the cell slid open, and Olivia Ossare strode inside. “Hello, everyone.”

  Tom felt a terrible spike of unease, Lyla’s words still burning in his ears. Oh no. If Olivia tried to check on how he was faring or something, it would kill him. Lyla would laugh and laugh.

  Luckily, Olivia didn’t single him out. “I heard what happened. Are you all okay?”

  Murmurs carried through the room, everyone affirming they were fine. Tom said it very vehemently, hoping she’d get the message.

  Her dark eyes found Tom’s, and he could tell from something in her face that she might get it, after all. She made no move to draw toward any one of them, merely stood there and began explaining in her soft, firm voice that Lieutenant Blackburn was under orders to c
onsult her regarding any activity with the census device. Not only that, but they did have the right to opt out of a memory scan.

  “No matter what anyone may tell you, they cannot force this intrusion on you,” she concluded, an edge to her voice. “It is against the law, and if you tell me you want to opt out, I’ll make sure you’re allowed to do so.”

  But no one spoke up. No one wanted to be the pansy who couldn’t face the census device like everyone else, least of all Tom. Then the door to the Census Chamber slid open, and Lyla was called inside. Vik was next.

  Olivia had brought them some sodas, so Tom took one and sipped it, glad for something to do with his hands. Then it was Vik’s turn, and all pretense of levity vanished from the room with him. Tom couldn’t take his eyes off the door. He was vaguely aware of Olivia sinking down into the seat next to his.

  Then the soldier came for Jennifer, and said, “Raines, you’re going after her.”

  Jennifer left, and Tom’s focus narrowed into a tiny window in the center of his vision, his heart thumping harder and harder in his ears. It would be fine. It would be. It would have to be. It wouldn’t be like the last time. Blackburn would stop this time. He had to stop this time.

  He felt Olivia’s hand gently grip his shoulder, and the shock of physical contact was enough to break the frantic spiral of his thoughts. He realized that his hands were shaking where they gripped the aluminum can.

  He saw the softness on her face, the understanding in her eyes. Her other hand began stroking his back. It made his stomach clench and his throat grow tight, realizing she knew what he was feeling but didn’t see him as some sort of coward. She understood. A constriction loosened around his chest, an incredible weight sliding off his shoulders. Need welled up deep from the core of his being, along with a crushing sense of gratitude that she’d come here, that she was staying.

  And then he felt the blare of Wyatt’s gaze on them and remembered that she was there, seeing this. Heat stole into his face. What was wrong with him?

  “I’m okay,” Tom said, edging himself away from Olivia until he hung off the edge of the bench. “I’m good.”

  “You can opt out,” Olivia said softly, her eyes intent. “You don’t have to do this.”

  Tom’s gaze skittered over to Wyatt’s, then danced away. “Nah.” He laughed again. “I’m fine. I’m good.”

  Despite his words, his instincts were screaming at him when he stepped inside the Census Chamber and found Blackburn facing the screen, the projected light of the census device on his back, casting a dark silhouette against the larger screen. Tom’s eyes found the metal claw looming threateningly over the seat, the one he’d been tied to for two days, and he couldn’t tear his eyes from those straps hanging from the chair.

  “Raines.”

  Tom jumped. He faced Blackburn in the shadowed chamber, his blood roaring in his ears.

  Blackburn considered him for a long moment. Then, “Did you see anything that can’t go into an official record?”

  Tom blinked.

  “Well?”

  “Uh, what?”

  “All this footage”—Blackburn jabbed his thumb toward the census device—“will be reviewed by external auditors. Not just me. Did you see anything that you can’t afford to show to anyone other than me?” There was an intensity in his voice, and Tom finally understood what he was asking.

  “Uh, yes. Sir. There’s something.”

  “What?” There was a frightening light in Blackburn’s eyes.

  Tom drew back a step. He looked uneasily up at the census device.

  “Raines, I can’t use the census device on you if there is something others can’t see. That means you need to tell me with words what you saw on that fly-along.”

  Wait. So this meant . . . Wow. This time, his strange ability with machines was actually his defense. Relief crashed over him in a giddy wave.

  “Yeah. I saw something. Sort of.” The words tumbled out of him; he feared Blackburn’s offer might disappear if he didn’t tell him everything quickly. “I know there was someone with a neural processor behind it. The processor was controlling the ships remotely. I don’t know who it was, or where they were doing it from. I didn’t get a chance to look into it, really, before we got crushed. I know that a third neural processor was interfacing with the ship somehow. Not mine. Not Heather’s. Someone else’s. I felt it.”

  Blackburn rubbed his big palm over his mouth.

  “That’s it,” Tom said lamely. “Sir.”

  Blackburn turned his back to him and began gazing at a frozen image on the screen—the view from Snowden and Jennifer’s ship as it plummeted into Jupiter. Then he crossed the room to the cell and rapped on the door. Olivia Ossare emerged, hostility prickling in the air as her dark-eyed gaze clashed with Blackburn’s. The two of them had been on bad terms ever since Blackburn broke into her office with his men to seize Tom.

  “You’re right.” Blackburn’s gaze skirted over her briefly before flicking away. “It’s too soon, and the kid’s anxious. He’s opting out. You win. Now get him out of my sight.”

  Olivia didn’t say a word and brushed past Blackburn, stepping toward Tom. “Would you like to head upstairs with me?”

  Tom gazed past her into the cell, its lone occupant Wyatt Enslow, her eyes wide as she took in the scene. He flushed, his relief at his reprieve somewhat dampened by the sheer surge of humiliation he felt, knowing she’d heard all this.

  “Yeah,” Tom mumbled. “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  VIK TOOK TOM’S mind from the Census Chamber that evening before dinner, when they sneaked into Hannibal Division to await Wyatt’s return to her bunk. If Wyatt hadn’t been so busy the last few hours, helping around the Pentagonal Spire while Blackburn searched for the cause of the hijacking (and fended off inquiries about his competence at his job), then perhaps she might have noticed what Vik was up to sooner.

  But she hadn’t noticed, so Vik pulled it off.

  Tom made a show of shielding his eyes as they stepped inside, because every surface of Wyatt’s bunk was now filled with pictures of Vik: Vik shirtless and flexing his muscles; Vik pointing and winking at a camera; a graphic of Vik flexing one pec, then another very rapidly with a big cheesy grin on his face; a giant marble statue of Vik holding his arms up in the air like some mad dictator. After showing off his handiwork, Vik and Tom leaned against the wall around the bend in the corridor to await her return.

  Within minutes, Wyatt strolled into her bunk. A resounding shriek split the air. Tom and Vik collapsed to the floor, convulsing in laughter. They heard rapid footsteps beating toward them. They tore to their feet and dashed out of Hannibal Division, then collapsed in the Middles’ common room.

  “Wow, did you hear that cry of horror?” Tom marveled. “Good job with the shirtless pics, man.”

  “You think it was horror?” Vik mused, rubbing his chin. “I thought it sounded like a shriek of delight.”

  “Sure. We can ask her tonight, buddy.”

  Vik sighed tragically. “She’ll lie. Face it, Tom: Enslow will never admit she finds me enticing.”

  “IT’S NOT TRUE,” Wyatt told Yuri urgently later, when they were all hanging out. “I don’t find Vik enticing.”

  “Vik says you do,” Tom countered.

  Since Tom had stomped Yuri at VR games so many times, Yuri insisted on a game he was better at. That’s why tonight, he and Tom were hunched over a chessboard, with Wyatt observing them.

  Vik wasn’t sitting with them; he was sprawled on the floor of the plebe common room. As soon as they’d driven out the plebes, Vik made a big show of dying of what he called a boredom seizure, with convulsions and gargling sounds and everything, because he thought playing chess was the most boring thing in the world, second only to watching people play chess.

  By silent but unanimous compact, Tom, Wyatt, and Yuri had said nothing and pretended they didn’t notice the dramatics going on behind them. Vik committed to the theatrics, t
hough. He’d thrashed hard enough to upend a table, and now he was lying mock dead on the floor.

  “I mean it. I really don’t find Vik enticing,” Wyatt said, louder, and the three of them waited for Vik to break character and argue with her.

  When he didn’t, she raised her eyebrows, reluctantly impressed.

  “He’s determined,” Tom said.

  Yuri cleared his throat, and Tom remembered to place his next piece on the board. He ignored the sad eep sound Wyatt couldn’t help making.

  “Check,” Yuri said, making his next move.

  Tom examined the board, then plucked up his bishop.

  “No, Tom!” Wyatt cried. “Don’t.”

  “Wyatt,” Tom exclaimed, “you wanna play against Yuri yourself, that’s fine, but stop telling me where to move things. He and I are doing this mano a mano, not a womano.”

  “And no computero,” Yuri added.

  “Computero?” Wyatt echoed.

  “No computero, because Thomas and I have agreed that chess must be played between two human brains,” Yuri explained to her gently. “We do not let the neural processors do the work, or it will become two computers playing each other, which will not be rewarding.” He took Tom’s bishop.

  Tom’s pawn was stuck, so he moved his knight. Wyatt made a sad eep sound again.

  “Wyatt!”

  “I can’t help it, Tom,” Wyatt said. “That was a bad move.”

  Tom focused on the board. No computero. That meant no downloading anything from the Spire’s databases about chess strategies and no allowing the neural processor to calculate the merits of every move and the ramifications from there. Since Wyatt’s brain was already as close as a human brain would get to a superprocessor, she kept seeing his mistakes as he made them and making that annoying sad noise.

  Sure enough, Yuri took Tom’s knight with his queen.

  Wyatt grew very sad and shook her head tragically. “Tom, you lost the game. You don’t realize it yet.”

  Whether she intended it or not, Wyatt was doing a fantastic job of psyching him out. Three moves later, her solemn pronouncement came true.