Vortex

  Tom’s heart pounded so loudly, he could hear it thundering in his ears. He reached up, knowing he should obey the order, but he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t. He knew something awful was going to come of this, he did, and adrenaline was surging through his veins. And rage. So much fury he felt like he was choking on it. “No,” he said. “You first. Sir.”

  Blackburn leaned menacingly closer. “I’m sorry. Did I articulate clearly enough for you, Mr. Raines? Disconnect from the exosuit. Now.”

  But Tom shook his head, his blood beating in his head so hard his vision seemed to be tunneling in, leaving the man in front of him the single, stark, clear focus. He wanted nothing more for an instant than to tear him limb from limb. “I don’t think so. I kind of like you not having a forty-two-fold strength advantage on me. Sir.”

  “You’re that afraid of me?”

  “I’m not afraid of you!”

  Blackburn considered him, then the exosuit, and Tom could almost see his brain working over the hazards of an enraged trainee hooked into a machine he might not have full control over. The lieutenant reached up and pulled back the neck of his own exosuit, disconnecting. Tom’s heart still thundered in his ears, anger like a poison inside him. Then the man stepped free of his exosuit, the fragile, “easily ruptured” human frame all that remained.

  “Your turn, Raines.”

  Livid, Tom reached up, his sweaty hands slipping over the neck of the exosuit. He’d just disconnected it when Blackburn snarled, “You really think I need an exosuit to deal with you?”

  He closed the distance to him in two strides. Tom’s hand flew up to jam the connection port back in, but it was too late. Blackburn’s large hands seized him, and in one motion, he hauled him clear of the suit.

  “Now, you listen up, Raines, because I’m only going to say this—”

  But an unthinking anger surged through Tom, and as his feet met solid ground, he lashed out wildly with his fist. Pain shot up his arm as his knuckles hit Blackburn’s jaw. Blackburn reeled back, but he spun around at once and hooked Tom’s ankle, flipping his foot out from under him.

  The world upended, and Tom’s back slammed the ground hard enough to drive the air out of him. He doubled over, desperate to breathe, but Blackburn pinned him, crushing him into the ground. Tom struggled for several frantic seconds, but there was an unbearable weight on his throat, heavy legs pinning his, and the hand he thrust up to jab at Blackburn’s eyes got captured and twisted around painfully.

  “Stop this, Raines. Right now.”

  Tom yanked their arms closer and sank his teeth into Blackburn’s hand. He took malicious pleasure in the pained cry, and punched the soft cartilage of Blackburn’s throat. Tom jerked to flip them both over, then tried to bolt to nullify the strength and weight advantage Blackburn had over him. He didn’t get far. Arms snared his midsection, and he was bowled over to the ground. Blackburn dug his knuckles into a pressure point on the back of Tom’s neck, and he yelled out in shock, the pain driving him down.

  “That one’s not in your processor,” Blackburn remarked. “I know it isn’t, because I never installed it.” Then he delivered a short, ringing blow to the back of Tom’s neck.

  Tom found himself on the ground, his head reeling. It came to him dully that he’d attacked a superior. And worse, he lost. His heart raged at Blackburn and he wished he’d hurt him more. In the corner of his vision, he saw Blackburn, seated on the ground, too, examining his hand and tiredly brushing off his uniform.

  “I know what this is about,” he said at length.

  “No, you don’t.” Tom tried to surge back up, but Blackburn reached out and knocked him back to the ground, almost casually.

  “Of course I do. I’ve been waiting for this since the census device.”

  “It’s not . . .” The census device. But even as the heated words ripped from his throat, Tom choked off. His hands clenched into fists, and he screwed his eyes shut, a terrible, lingering sense of humiliation twisting through him when he thought of all those things Blackburn had torn right out of his mind—all those things he knew about him and the way he’d started fraying over those two days, puking over himself—and he wanted to tear him apart, shred his skin, stamp his guts. . . .

  He shook with fury, wishing to kill him, hurt him, make him pay, and even the satisfaction of holding his threat over Blackburn’s head, knowing the guy feared what Tom could do if he went to Vengerov, wasn’t enough to cool the hot rage inside him.

  Tom tangled his fingers in his hair, because he was so angry he didn’t feel in control of himself. And he was painfully aware of Blackburn watching him fight to contain himself.

  “You had your moment, Raines,” he said after a bit. “You got in a good punch, and I’m even letting you get away with it. You get that.” He leaned closer. “What you do not get to do is toy around with the exosuits. Do you hear me? That anger at me you’ve got pent up in there does not get to come out when you’re dealing with machines that can kill people.”

  “Fine.”

  “We’re clear here?”

  “I told you, I get it! What else do you want?”

  “I want you to think. You looked around today and you saw that every other trainee was having trouble controlling those exosuits, and your first impulse—your first one—was to show off to your friend. Didn’t you step back for one microsecond and consider that ability you have with machines, and wonder if maybe you should keep it to yourself?”

  “That has nothing to do with this. This was just exosuiting.”

  “It was hooking into a machine, Raines, interfacing with a machine and commanding it. Think. About. It.” He jabbed his finger into Tom’s forehead to punctuate each word.

  Tom jerked back from him, his stomach churning. The truth was, he hadn’t realized he was doing something so bizarre. He’d assumed he was good at exosuiting.

  “Thatta boy. It’s starting to make sense to you now, isn’t it? You’re going to have to be more careful in the future. No more showing off, and no more stunts like the one in Las Vegas.”

  Tom’s mouth went dry. His eyes flew to Blackburn.

  “Yes, you didn’t think I knew about that.” Every line stood out on Blackburn’s face. “Do you honestly believe the Department of Homeland Security missed some ghost crawling around their server? I am betting there is a crack team of NSA agents trying to trace the source of that drone hijacking as we speak. You know what that means?”

  “I’m sure you’re going to tell me,” Tom said.

  Blackburn stabbed his thumb at his chest. “It means I’m the one stuck mopping up all traces of what you did. I’m not going to condescend to explain to you why my time is of utmost value around this dump. I can’t afford to spend the next few years covering your tracks. You simply have to avoid leaving them. See, Raines, your threat to go to Joseph Vengerov and share what you can do with him if I ‘mess with you’ again? You have some devastating leverage there, but it’s a hydrogen bomb. You only get to use it once. That means if the DHS ever notices your existence, your leverage is null and void, and there is nothing to stop me from taking another crack at extracting every secret from your head. And that’s only if you’re lucky and I get to you first.”

  “That’s lucky?” Tom repeated bitterly. “Lucky now means ‘worst case scenario ever,’ then. That’s great. Good to know.”

  “Sir,” Blackburn corrected.

  “You outrank me. You shouldn’t call me ‘sir.’”

  “Raines, you’ll address me as ‘sir’ or I will stick you back down in that cell next to the census device until ‘sir’ is the only word you remember.”

  Tom bristled. He’d never hated someone so much. “Sir, yes, sir. I’ll use ‘sir,’ sir. Is that all, sir?”

  “Oh, I’d say that’s all. Get into the simulation with the others.” Blackburn jabbed at his forearm keyboard. “It irritates me just looking at you.”

  Back at you, Tom thought, but then a tingling sensation shot up his neck, an
d the Calisthenics simulation cranked to life in his vision center. The Japanese army charged toward Tom in the simulated, World War II–era China, and Tom threw himself into the workout. But however fast he ran, he couldn’t escape his lingering fury at the man who’d nearly ripped his mind apart.

  He imagined every single fake enemy wearing Blackburn’s face.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  TOM CHEERED UP a bit when he arrived in the mess hall, because there was meat loaf for lunch and his friend Yuri Sysevich was waiting at a table. He was still a plebe, since he hadn’t been promoted with the three of them. They mostly avoided talk about Middle Company so they wouldn’t rub it in too much. As it turned out, Yuri had had a far more interesting vacation than they had, anyway. He’d signed up for a relaxing wilderness survival excursion, led by a former Green Beret, where he’d eaten bugs and climbed mountains and fended off wild animals.

  “It is remarkable, truly remarkable, how many edible bugs there are to sustain you in the wilderness!”

  “How many did you eat?” Tom wondered.

  “Five different insects,” Yuri answered proudly.

  “Ew,” Wyatt said, rubbing the spot on her head where he’d kissed her in greeting.

  “Yeah, don’t elaborate,” Vik urged him, shoveling rice into his mouth.

  “Were the bugs you ate like beetles or more like those ricelike mealworm things?” Tom said, watching Vik. Vik had the weakest stomach Tom knew, and it amused him endlessly.

  Wyatt caught on to what Tom was doing. “Ooh, you mean the maggoty bugs from festering wounds that start like rice and sprout into full-blown intestinal parasites?”

  Vik shook his head. “This won’t work, guys. I know you’re just making stuff up.”

  “No, the insects I consumed bore no resemblance to rice,” Yuri answered seriously. “You are thinking of those parasites that grow in rice. They have very gooey, putrid innards, and they are slightly off-white, like the contents of Vikram’s plate right now.”

  Vik finally tossed down his fork. “I’m done with lunch because I’m full. That’s why. I’m not stopping because of you three. You have not won this.”

  Tom, Wyatt, and Yuri cackled, because they didn’t believe him.

  IT TURNED OUT Tom and Vik were in the same simulation group, led by blond-haired, round-faced Combatant Snowden Gainey. Tom pulled up his profile from memory.

  NAME: Snowden Gainey

  RANK: USIF, Grade VI, Camelot Company, Napoleon Division

  CALL SIGN: NewGuy

  ORIGIN: North Westchester, Connecticut

  ACHIEVEMENTS: Junior world squash champion, member of the Future Financial Innovators of America Society

  IP: 2053:db7:lj71::224:ll3:6e8

  SECURITY STATUS: Top Secret LANDLOCK-6

  Within minutes, Tom realized that Snowden had a totally different leadership style than his previous simulation group leader, Elliot Ramirez.

  Elliot had always waited at the edge of one of the cots, visibly a part of the group, yet he’d also greeted them as they came in, which reminded everyone who was the boss. Snowden sort of hung out in the back corner, dread glimmering over his pale features as the number of trainees sitting on the cots with EKG monitors grew and grew. Only once everyone was there did he finally perch himself on a cot.

  “Well, as you newbies have probably heard,” Snowden ventured meekly, “Applied Scrimmages as a Middle involves scenarios similar to the ones you faced as plebes, but instead of facing simulated opponents, we directly face other groups of Middles, and we rotate every week. Today we’re fighting Yosef Saide’s group. So, do you guys want to start?” It was posed like a question, like he needed their permission.

  Everyone dropped back to sprawl across their cots, and Tom twisted his head to the side to exchange an excited grin with Vik. “Got your back, Doctor.”

  “You, too, Doctor.” Vik’s eyes gleamed crazily.

  And then Tom hooked in his neural wire and his senses dimmed as he was sucked into the simulation.

  He found himself surrounded by chaos, World War II–era sailors screaming and rushing past him, the ship they were on jolting violently, fires flaring, seawater gushing into cracks in the hull.

  Tom shouted for Vik, and they met up on the rocking deck, gasping for air, seeing a German U-boat in the distance slinking away.

  “We’re done for. Already,” Tom said, incredulous. They hadn’t gotten a chance to fight. The sim started this way.

  “Life rafts!” Vik gestured toward a crush of frantic sailors, all eager to evacuate.

  Tom gave a quick nod, realizing this must be the scenario: they’d get in those life rafts and fight Yosef’s group. Maybe the Nazis would double back and attack again? Or maybe they’d face off with pirates or something?

  Tom and Vik grabbed their place in the last life raft that dropped from the ship. A powerful wave tossed them from the main vessel as it sank into the churning ocean.

  Soon, the water grew calm. Awe filled Tom as he marveled, not for the first time, that this was his life. He was sitting here on a rescue ship with his best friend, witnessing a devastating shipwreck like it was real. The raft was supposed to have two wooden oars, but it only had one. Tom and Vik steered their raft as best they could with it, and helped soaked, shivering trainees into it as they encountered them. Soon, they were sitting with Lyla Martin of Genghis Division, as well as two other Middles Tom had seen around: Walton Covner and Marrion Trout of Hannibal Division.

  When Snowden Gainey appeared in the life raft with them, Tom realized the guy had actually been sitting out of the scenario until now, letting them undergo it by themselves. That was another huge change, because Elliot was a lead-by-example type.

  “So,” Snowden said nervously, “is this it?”

  “I saw some of our group drown,” Walton noted. He was a large kid with very dark skin, thick black hair, and an air of stoicism about him.

  “Well.” Snowden rubbed his palms together. “Well, that’s unlucky for them. I should tell you, Yosef and I agreed together to run this scenario with the pain receptors on.”

  Tom shrugged, but he heard Lyla sputter with outrage. “Why? Why would you do that?”

  “Well, it’s a time-compressed scenario—” Snowden began.

  Lyla seemed ready to punch him. Marrion groaned, too.

  “What’s the catch here?” Vik asked them.

  “Time-compressed scenarios,” Lyla explained. “Space combat takes place at machine-fast speeds, so the neural processor can be used to speed up your perception of time to keep up with it. Some training programs use that function to give you an artificially extended scenario.”

  “Really?” Tom sat up, fascinated. “So wait. We could spend days doing this scenario?” Awesome. Fighting pirates for days on end . . .

  “Weeks,” Lyla said. “And you’re not going to be happy about that soon.”

  That’s when Snowden announced, “Looks like everything’s in order here. I’ll pop in later.” And his avatar vanished, leaving them all together in the life raft, bobbing listlessly on the ocean.

  Tom stared at the empty space where he’d been. Lyla’s last words rang in his ears and it occurred to him that there might be a reason Snowden wasn’t participating in the sim.

  As time passed and Tom grew dreadfully thirsty, he became certain of it. The problem with the scenario was, it felt true to life—like they were all on a life raft, floating in the middle of the ocean with no supplies but a canteen of water Walton salvaged that was rapidly being depleted. The worst thing was, they knew they could be stuck out here for weeks.

  Tom swished the canteen grimly, hearing only a bit of water sloshing. “What happens now?”

  “We’ll die of dehydration. It will be slow and painful,” Walton answered. He sounded very calm about it.

  Tom scanned the horizon for pirates or Nazis or anything, but no one came and attacked them. What was holding up Yosef’s group?

  When Snowden appeared in the life r
aft again to check on them, they were ready. They all turned on him and demanded an explanation for the scenario.

  Snowden nodded pleasantly. “It’s a survival scenario. You win if you survive.”

  Tom gaped at him. “Wait, that’s it?”

  “That’s it. You’re fighting the most dreadful enemy of all here. Impatience. Ooh, is that water? I’m parched.” And then he did the unthinkable—Snowden plucked the canteen from Walton and swigged down the last of their water.

  They all sat there, watching his Adam’s apple bob. Disbelieving rage surged through Tom. Snowden had just arrived. He couldn’t possibly be as thirsty as them, but he drank their water!

  Marrion Trout couldn’t take it anymore. The slight, black-haired girl declared that she was bored and “totally over this,” then she threw herself overboard. For a few minutes, she treaded water, working up the courage to drown herself even though the pain receptors were on. And then fins cut through the water, and Yosef’s group finally revealed themselves by tearing her apart.

  “Impatience?” Walton pointed to the blood blossoming in the water. “Sure it’s not about sharks?”

  “Oh. Yes,” Snowden said. “It’s about surviving the sharks, too. Actually, it’s mainly about the sharks. Good luck!” And then with a wiggle of his fingers, he disappeared again, leaving them with an empty canteen and a whole bunch of ravenous sharks.

  Three days dragged by in scenario time. They grew desperate with thirst, terribly sunburned, and achingly hungry. They’d managed to splinter the wooden oar into a makeshift spear, but as soon as they killed the first of Yosef’s group, the sharks began steering clear—waiting for the humans to break down and come to them.

  Walton gave up during the night and gulped a bunch of seawater.

  Tom woke up to the sound of Walton’s frantic slurps. “This is not going to end well for you, man.” Tom’s voice was so scratchy he barely recognized it.

  Walton nodded, his mouth dripping with seawater. “It’s very salty.”

  Vik shivered where he was sprawled out next to Tom in the raft. They all had oozing boils on their skin from exposure and saltwater, but one of Vik’s had become infected, and the telltale red marks of blood poisoning were creeping up his limbs.