Vortex

  Tom was completely restless. He wanted to do something other than fantasize about tall glasses of water and hamburgers. He tried to figure out what this scenario was testing. Reactions under pressure? Under intolerable thirst and boredom? What?

  As the sun rose, and grew higher in the sky, Tom’s skin began to burn in the spots where he wasn’t already blistered. Meanwhile, Walton announced, “I am the king of Mars.”

  Tom forced his eyes open and saw Walton standing in the middle of the raft. The saltwater had finally kicked in and started killing his brain, so now he was hallucinating.

  Lyla was across the raft from Tom, her muscular arms folded listlessly over her body, blond hair tangled around her shoulders. “No, you’re not the king of Mars. Sit down.”

  Walton raised his arms and held them outstretched. “Beep, beep.”

  “Stop that,” Lyla snarled.

  “Beep, beep.”

  “Stop that!”

  “I am an antenna to signal the coast guard.”

  “Walton, sit down, man,” Tom urged him.

  Walton shrieked, “BIRDS LIVE ON YOUR HEAD!” He flung himself over and began tugging on Tom’s hair, the sudden shift in weight rocking the raft violently, nearly capsizing them.

  “Aah! Stop!” Tom fended him off with the oar end of their spear, and Walton retreated to the other side of the raft. Tom’s scalp felt hot and sore, and he pressed his hand up to discover a bald spot. “Come on, man! You tore out some hair!”

  “It’s okay. I’m a doctor,” Walton replied.

  Vik stirred from where he’d fallen into a delirious sleep. “Doctor?”

  “Yes?” Walton said, perking up.

  “No!” Tom said, holding up the spear end this time to keep Walton back. He leaned over to nudge Vik. “Hey, Doctor. I’m here.”

  “Not you.” Vik’s voice was as hoarse as Tom’s. “Real doctor. Think I’m sick. Water.”

  “We don’t have water. This is a sim. It’s not real, remember?”

  “Right. Sim.” Vik heaved himself up painfully. It took him several moments to get enough energy to say, “I hate this sim.”

  “We’ll win or die and it’ll be over.” Tom knew that was optimistic, though. He wasn’t sure how to win.

  “Hate it,” Vik moaned.

  They’d all gone over it a bunch of times. This whole sim was ultimately rigged against them. Yosef’s group, playing sharks, were in their natural environment. They had stuff to eat, plenty to drink, and they could survive the ocean elements. Their group had nothing. They’d bunched some seaweed up to try luring down seagulls, but the birds kept their distance. Vik dragged his shirt in the water, then tried some of the plankton he caught, but it made him violently vomit over the side of the boat, which was really counterproductive when they were all dying of dehydration.

  The most water they could get was from the condensation on the raft first thing in the morning, and even that tasted like salt. And Walton’s madness wasn’t helping anything. He was reaching into the air now, swatting at something only he could see. Lyla sighed and asked what he was doing.

  “Bats,” Walton said, agitated.

  “You should jump in the water and let the sharks eat you,” Lyla suggested. “You’re basically dead already. Worse, you’re annoying me.”

  “No, I’ll survive. I have gnome minions. Just nearby. They’ll rescue us.”

  Lyla sighed. “Walton, you do not have gnome minions.”

  “You’ll see. I’ll go get them.”

  Then Walton hurled himself into the water with a resounding splash. Tom, Vik, and Lyla all waited for his scream, but it never came. Soon, he’d swum so far Tom couldn’t see him. For a delirious moment, Tom marveled at the clean escape Walton had made. His water and food-deprived brain tried to wrap around it, and all Tom could think for a long moment was that Walton truly did have gnome minions out there, helping him.

  Then fins cut their way through the water, and Walton’s scream rose in the distance, killing that fanciful idea.

  “Ugh.” Vik threw his hands over his eyes. He leaned back on the raft, tugging at his shirt like he was hot, even though his teeth were chattering. “This is awful. So we have to live through getting eaten by sharks, or we die slowly and painfully of dehydration. Guys, there’s only one option here.” Vik rallied his strength and sat up. “We can’t win. Let’s all . . . you know. Kill each other somehow.”

  “It’s bound to hurt less than the sharks,” Lyla muttered.

  Tom found his eyes riveted to the bloody spot in the water where Walton had been, the way the sharks were frantically swarming over it. All simulations as animals involved a battle between the powerful instincts of the creature they played and the deliberate human mind. Yosef’s group was staying clear of their raft because their human minds told them they’d get stabbed.

  Tom could see how frenzied the blood had made them. What if they did something to create that frenzy on purpose, so those animal instincts would truly take more control over them?

  “Guys, I have an idea.” Tom was excited. “What if we wait till Snowden reappears, we kill him, and we use his body as shark chum, and stab Yosef’s group when they get lured in?”

  “I’d pay to see Snowden killed,” Vik exulted.

  Lyla cackled evilly. “Shark chum made of Snowden. It would be so perfect.”

  It sounded like a plan to Tom.

  When Snowden reappeared, Tom was ready. He gutted Snowden with one brutal thrust of his spear. Then he seized the thrashing blond kid before he could tumble overboard, and pinned his body to the floor of the boat, rancid water sloshing around them. “Okay, he’s bleeding out fast. We should tilt him over the water or something—”

  Tom blinked at her. “Are you crazy?” Lyla shouted at him.

  “What? We talked about this.” He looked at Vik. “You said you’d pay to see it!”

  Vik’s eyes were wide. He appeared torn between laughter and horror. “I didn’t think you’d actually do it.”

  “Oh my God,” Lyla exclaimed. “I thought you were joking, you psycho!”

  “What? What’s the big deal?” Maybe dehydration was frying his brain, but Tom was truly bewildered now.

  “You’re not supposed to kill our group leader, you moron!” Lyla exclaimed.

  “We’re supposed to kill all the sharks, and we need shark chum for that.” Tom scooped up a handful of the bloody water and tossed it overboard. “This is great shark chum.” He could see fins cutting through the water toward them. “See? They’re already going for it.”

  “The big deal,” she growled, “is that the shark chum is made of Snowden! If you were so eager for shark chum, you should’ve been the chum yourself, or I could’ve thrown you in! You can’t kill our instructor.”

  “Why should I jump in?” Tom said disbelievingly. “Snowden got us into this. He wasn’t helping us, and he drank our water!” That infuriated Tom the most. “He didn’t even need it, and he drank it anyway. He was far and away the most expendable, useless person here, leader or no.”

  Lyla groaned. “Karl is right: you are such an idiot. Do you even realize the whole point of these sims is to impress people in the military?”

  “I think winning will impress the military more than losing,” Tom retorted.

  Vik was shaking with a tired, giddy, delirious sort of laughter. “Tom, I love you.”

  Lyla punched Vik’s arm. Hard.

  Vik kept laughing. “This is so great. I’d cry with the joy of it if I could.”

  Lyla punched him again. This time, it really must’ve hurt, because Vik scuttled away from her to the other side of the raft. “Hey! No being violent to me unless you want me hitting back.”

  “Oh, please do. I was going easy on you, but I’d love a chance to let loose. These are registered lethal weapons, you know.” She held her fists up menacingly.

  “Uh, you know, I’m over it,” Vik said uneasily. “I’m glad we had this chance to talk out our differences and reconci
le.”

  She dropped her hands, disappointed.

  Tom turned away from them. He didn’t care what Lyla had to say—he thought he’d done the right thing. He hoisted Snowden’s body over the side of the raft to lure the sharks closer. As the first shark fin cut through the water by his raft, Tom whooped in glee and plunged his spear into its rough body, tearing the spear out before the shark could dart away and unbalance him. The next shark got the same treatment, then the next.

  It was extremely cathartic, and Lyla snatched the spear from him so she could gore the next one, an animalistic growl coming from her lips that Tom was delirious enough to find painfully alluring. Vik even rallied his strength to kill a shark of his own. The water was saturated with blood, appealing to the shark instinct, overwhelming the trainee human instincts, so one after another, they grew excited and went into a frenzy by the raft, bringing them in reach of the spear.

  Soon, they’d slaughtered all Yosef’s trainees. But the lure didn’t work on Yosef Saide himself. He was too self-disciplined. After his trainees were finished, Yosef became crafty. He began circling the raft at a distance, a dark shadow shimmering through the water. He dared not come within reach of their spear, and he didn’t need to: they were going to die in due course without any actions on his part.

  “What now?” Lyla said. “We don’t have another instructor to murder. Maybe we should use you this time, Tom.”

  The suggestion was snide, but it gave Tom an idea. “Actually, that’s a great idea.”

  Vik raised his head blearily. His voice was so hoarse and faint, Tom barely recognized it. “This does not sound like a great idea.”

  “No, it is. I’ll jump in the water, swim far enough from the raft that Yosef will know I can’t save myself by swimming back, and he’ll come for me. I’ll kill him.”

  “Or he’ll kill you,” Lyla said hopefully.

  “That is a possibility,” Tom admitted. “I’m going for it.”

  He threw himself into the cold water with a resounding splash and began swimming, spear in hand, the ocean dragging at his legs, Yosef hanging at a distance. A few times the shadow shimmered its way toward him, the lethal fin cutting a path through the water, but Yosef always veered off. He was feinting, testing whether Tom would flee to safety.

  And then Yosef must’ve realized Tom had reached the point of no return. This time, he committed. His fin sliced through the water toward Tom. For a moment as that black shadow mounted upon him, a creeping horror grew inside Tom, realizing this was going to hurt, realizing what he’d done, what he’d invited upon himself. . . . Even if he got a spear thrust in, he was probably about to get chomped by a shark.

  But then a crazed sort of euphoria swept over him, and Tom whooped in glee and thrust his spear forward as Yosef’s razor-sharp teeth flashed right in his face—

  And then his eyes snapped open in the training room. For a moment, Tom felt a profound relief, realizing his death had been painless. Then Snowden leaned over him, and Tom realized he’d been unplugged.

  “We need to have a chat.”

  Tom sat bolt upright. “You unplugged me.”

  “I don’t appreciate being killed by my own troops,” Snowden informed him. “George Washington’s troops didn’t stab him to death. That’s why we’re not speaking British. . . . I mean, we are speaking British,” he amended, “but not with a British accent.”

  Tom kept staring at him. Snowden had unplugged him at the most critical moment of the sim. He couldn’t believe it. He’d been seconds from winning!

  “Maybe someone should talk to you about the chain of command,” Snowden decided. “Who was your old sim group leader?”

  That’s how Tom ended up waiting on his cot for Elliot Ramirez to come. He looked inward at the chronometer, his neural processor swiftly calculating the ratio between simulation time and real time. In the hours from Snowden’s time of death to the time of his confrontation with Yosef, less than thirty seconds had passed, real time.

  His head throbbed. It hadn’t felt like thirty seconds at all. He rubbed at his temples. He couldn’t believe all those days at sea had happened in mere hours.

  “You get a time dilation hangover the first few extended sims.” Walton’s voice drifted over from a nearby cot. “You’ll get used to it.”

  “I can’t believe he pulled me out,” Tom complained. What would happen to Vik and Lyla in the simulation now? He’d had the spear, and he’d been taken out of the sim. They had no weapon.

  Walton sidled over to him and turned to keep his side to Tom while he spoke, like he was trying to fool a casual observer into thinking they weren’t talking. “So, Raines, you killed Snowden, I hear?”

  Tom eyed him, wondering if he’d react like Lyla. “Yeah, I kind of did.”

  Walton nodded crisply. “This pleases me.”

  “Sorry you got eaten by sharks, man. If it makes you feel better, I was so dehydrated, I actually thought you had gnome minions.”

  Walton stared at him intensely until Tom’s smile faded away. Then the other boy leaned forward and propped his elbows on the cot. “Tom, I don’t really have gnome minions.”

  He said it so seriously that Tom grew confused. “Uh, yeah, I figured that.”

  Walton eyed him dubiously, like he doubted it. “It would be better if you kept quiet about what I said in the sim while my judgment was impaired. I’d hate for people to get the wrong idea and think I really do have gnome minions.”

  Tom grew bewildered. “Gotta tell you, Walt, I really don’t think that’s gonna happen.”

  “Yes, but rumors can take on a life of their own, and even a completely false rumor about gnome minions I don’t have might give people the idea there are gnome minions I do have.”

  “No one’s ever, ever gonna believe you have gnome minions!” Tom exclaimed.

  Walton nodded grimly. “Let’s make sure of it. Discretion”—he held up a single finger and let the word hang there in the air a moment, then finished—“is the better part of valor.” And with that, he left Tom alone on his cot.

  Tom grew very certain that Walton was trying to mess with his head—and doing a very good job of it, with that straight face and stoic bearing that gave away nothing. He sat there, perplexed and pondering gnome minions, until Elliot Ramirez appeared in the doorway to the training room and beckoned him over with a crook of his finger.

  Tom sighed.

  ELLIOT SIGHED.

  Tom sat in the chair in Elliot’s bunk, ready for a dressing-down by the unofficial leader of Camelot Company—and the person Snowden had enlisted to explain to Tom the importance of respecting those of higher rank.

  “Snowden’s a little insecure,” Elliot said, surprising Tom. He turned from where he’d been gazing out the window. “He’s not a natural fit for a position of authority, and I think he knows it.”

  “Wait. You’re siding with me?” Tom was startled. And pleased.

  “I am saying, I don’t blame you, and I’m trying to give you advice about avoiding a repeat of your dispute in the future.” Elliot folded his arms, leaning against the wall. “Can you acknowledge that what you did was unwise?”

  “I almost won the scenario,” Tom protested, thinking of the message Vik had net-sent him a few minutes ago when Yosef finally won the sim. “Yosef only managed to rip open the life raft and kill Vik and Lyla because Snowden yanked me out.”

  “You weren’t about to win, Tom. Do you know what it’s called when soldiers kill their leader? It’s called ‘mutiny.’”

  “But Snowden was a burden on us. He was the most expendable.”

  Elliot shrugged. “You’re in a hierarchical, top-down organization right now. Do you really think the people at the top will approve a victory you won by killing someone who outranks you?”

  Tom remembered something Lyla had said, about how he should’ve thrown himself in instead. “So what if Snowden had beaten me to death to use as chum?”

  “That’s a different matter.” He must’v
e picked up on Tom’s irritation, because he went on, “That’s simply the way it works around here.”

  “But we’re not training to run into the line of fire at someone’s command,” Tom argued. “We’re training for Intrasolar Combat. We don’t risk our lives, and we don’t get orders to direct us while we fight—we have to plan for ourselves. I thought initiative was a good thing.”

  “Mutiny is never considered a good thing, Tom. It’s considered too much initiative. A threatening degree of initiative. You have to respect authority.”

  “I respect authority,” Tom insisted, and he did.

  General Marsh, for example. Yeah, he knew General Marsh would leave him in the dust in a second if he decided Tom wasn’t useful to him, but Tom owed him a lot for giving him a chance in the program and at Capitol Summit, so he respected the guy. . . . Also, there was his father. Neil wasn’t all that authoritative, but he was sort of looking out for him. He respected that, even if he didn’t trust his dad to make the right decisions or use good judgment ever—his dad at least loved him and wanted the best for him. Oh, and there was Olivia Ossare, who would definitely have his back, but he also didn’t fool himself. She was doing her job. Still, she’d saved him from the census device, so he owed her a huge debt, and he wouldn’t forget that.

  Those were three authority figures he basically respected right there. More or less.

  Even Elliot, he could kind of respect sometimes. He knew now that Elliot was an okay guy who meant well, at least. So he tried to listen as Elliot urged, “You need to change your approach and learn to show respect, whether or not you feel it. Every aspect of your life from here on out will work this way. People in charge want the sense that other people are subordinate to them. Let’s take your Coalition meet and greets Friday. You’re going to be interacting with potential sponsors, men and women who are above you in a hierarchy. You’re going to have to show respect, whether or not you really feel it; and if you can’t, you’ll be in trouble. If you can’t even manage to show respect for Snowden, how are you going to handle Friday?”