Vortex (5 page)

“What do you think you’re doing, Raines?” Blackburn’s voice was furious.

Dread pervaded Tom. He dragged his gaze back to meet Blackburn’s.

“Didn’t you hear a word I said, trainee? These are
dangerous
. I didn’t give you permission to move. You could have killed someone! Now hold still.” He seized Tom’s wrists and slammed them to his sides with a mighty clang that traveled all the way up the exosuit. Blackburn leaned in close so his gray eyes bore right into Tom’s and whispered, “This is not a game.”

Then Blackburn hoisted him up by the collar plate of the exosuit and carried him step by careful step across the arena. Tom hung there, arms at his sides, the eyes of the other trainees fixed on them every clanking step of the way. He got a mental image of a cat carrying a kitten by the scruff of its neck, and the giggles and sniggers of the other trainees stung his ears and confirmed that he looked as ridiculous as he thought.

Blackburn set him down carefully, then led them through exercise after exercise, working on finely tuned control, giving specific heights to jump to, specific stride lengths to walk. By the end of the lesson, Blackburn had progressed them at that same snail’s pace to the point where they could perform some basic marches. Some made less progress than others. Wyatt was reluctant to move at all, even though when she did move, she was much smoother than people like Vik, who seemed unable to walk without flailing jerks of his limbs.

Tom tried to do the precision thing, but it made him feel awkward, the way thinking about breathing too much could make it difficult to breathe. The truth was, he found exosuiting easy. Very easy, actually—as natural as walking but a hundred times more thrilling. Since the very sound of Blackburn’s voice made him want to do something violent, Tom decided to tune him out altogether and go with his instincts whenever Blackburn was turned away. At one point, Tom glanced behind him and felt a surge of certainty he could do something awesome here. He crouched down then shoved off into a backflip.

He wasn’t sure he could’ve landed one in real life, but now he clanked back to the ground on his feet with perfect ease. Kelcy Demos and Jennifer Nguyen were both staring at him, wide-eyed.

He shrugged his shoulders. “I’m awesome at this.”

They rolled their eyes.

Tom was disappointed. He’d hoped they’d be more impressed. He noticed Vik struggling with his own exosuit, so Tom made sure to saunter over to him and rub in his face how good he was with it by doing a jig right in front of him.

“I get it. You’re good,” Vik grumbled.

“Good? I’m like the Einstein of exosuiting. This is so easy. I even did a flip a minute ago. Seriously, I’ll take any challenge you wanna throw down, buddy.”

“Will you?” Vik said, a crazy glint in his eyes. He cast his gaze about, and his dark eyes drifted upward toward the ceiling. “Thirty bucks says you can’t touch one of those lights.”

Tom followed his gaze to the lights hanging from the ceiling thirty meters above them, thinking of Blackburn’s watermelon anecdote.

Vik raised his eyebrows challengingly. “Well? Or do you want to revise your statement, Dr. Einstein?”

Tom threw him a ferocious grin. “No way.”

Blackburn was standing in front of Wyatt, trying to coax her into taking a step toward him, arms out like he was braced to catch her. “You’re doing great, Enslow. Move your leg.”

Wyatt bit her lip. “What if I try to lift my foot, but my leg swings up and caves your head in?”

He chuckled. “I’ll take my chances. Come on, Wyatt, you can do this.”

Blackburn was busy. Good. Tom turned to face Vik, excited. It was now or never. “Adios, Doctor!”

Tom sprang into the air, excitement surging through him as he soared upward, higher than any human being could hope to leap. He raised his fists, ready to punch through the ceiling if he seemed in danger of getting his head smashed, but he’d calculated the height perfectly. His head was well clear of the ceiling when he began arcing down, and he reached forward to tap the light as he passed it.

That’s where it went wrong.

His exosuited hand exploded against the light, shattering it, sending fragments of glass sprinkling toward the floor of the Calisthenics Arena.

Oh no,
Tom thought as he plunged downward, stomach in his throat, glass raining on the ground as his metallic feet clanged against the dirt.

Tom found himself standing there, the exosuit bruising his joints, everyone staring at him in the sudden, enveloping silence.

Including Lieutenant Blackburn.

“Wow,” Tom tried desperately. “These exosuits, man. I wasn’t even trying to jump. I swear. That happened by accident. It must’ve malfunctioned.” In a flash of inspiration, he added, “Shoddy Obsidian Corp. craftsmanship, huh?”

But the smear against Joseph Vengerov’s company didn’t appease Blackburn. He advanced on Tom and loomed over him like he was fighting the urge to hit him. All Tom could think was,
He is going to murder me,
and for a moment, he felt trapped back under the census device, questions he couldn’t answer pounding into his ears. His chest grew tight, and he was only half aware of Blackburn craning his head back to survey the rest of the trainees.

“All of you, take those suits off. You’ll be pulled into the workout with the other trainees. Raines, don’t you move a single inch.”

Tom stood there, full of dread, as everyone around him yanked out the connection between their neural access ports and the exosuits. As soon as they stepped out, their faces grew oddly blank, the Calisthenics workout program sweeping them into the exercise scenario. Soon, they’d all gone bounding off to climb up a wall with the rest of the trainees, leaving Tom and Blackburn to face off amid the exoskeletons.

Blackburn folded his arms, his shoulder stretching his uniform. A vein flickered in his forehead. “Disconnect and take the exosuit off.”

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, and 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.