Vortex

This is degenerating into chaos, Heather thought.

Elliott thought, I need to talk to Karl later. I find this rather disturbing.

I’m not a little kid, Karl thought. Elliot acts like we’re all five.

Karl’s frequent, noisome farts, Tom thought.

That launched another long string of profanity, interspersed only by Wyatt’s idle thought: I made that program work, and Tom’s, Ha-ha-ha-ha.

Lieutenant Blackburn patted me on the back when he saw it, Wyatt thought. He said I’m smart. My parents never say nice things to me.

How sad and pathetic, Heather thought.

Bash his smug face, break his teeth out. Blood dripping out instead of that big, self-satisfied grin, Karl thought.

But I said you looked pretty that time you wore makeup, Karl, Tom thought.

More swearing from Karl.

And then Elliot: Tom must know he’s provoking him. Clever kid but I swear he’d prod a sleeping bear with a stick.

Elliot thinks I’m clever, Tom thought, surprised. Or stupid.

High-spirited, but needs guidance and some table manners, Elliot thought. Sorry, Tom, musing here. Ignore me.

Table manners? Tom wondered.

Karl really hates Tom. He doesn’t get Tom. Tom’s a lot deeper than he seems, Wyatt thought. Wait. Don’t think about Tom. Tom. Tom. Why isn’t there a send button so I can choose not to press send?

Send, Tom thought again. He still couldn’t help it. What are you thinking about me?

Stop it. Stop it. You’re not allowed to do that, Wyatt sent. Don’t send. Don’t send. Don’t send.

Send, Elliot thought.

1 . . . 1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . . 5 . . . Wyatt thought.

Very clever focusing her thoughts on the Fibonacci sequence, Elliot thought.

I hate her, Heather thought.

I want Raines to die and stop being here, Karl thought.

Just needs guidance to channel some of that restless energy into something productive, Elliot thought. So much potential but he sabotages himself.

Nigel was right. He always said Elliot acts like a day camp counselor, Heather thought.

34 . . . 55 . . . Wyatt thought. Boobs. No!

Boobs, Tom thought.

Raines choking, Karl thought.

Jesus, Karl, Elliot thought.

These people are wasting my time, Heather thought.

She ended the connection abruptly. Tom felt a moment of shock when his vision flooded with light again and he could see the others blinking around him, pulling out the neural wires connecting them to the decagon. Wyatt ducked her head and made herself as small as possible. Karl was flushed bright red. Only Elliot was smiling gamely. Heather threw them all a look of utter contempt but managed a stiff nod. “Okay, looks like you guys got the basics of it.”

The rest of the hour, they rotated across the room to the other three decagons with CamCos stationed at them. Wyatt’s number sequences grew more intricate, and Tom, for his part, started learning a lot about the CamCos he hadn’t known before.

At the next decagon, Yosef Saide was pondering whether Tom would’ve succeeded in killing him if he hadn’t been yanked out of the shark scenario, and he was eager to face him in a samurai scenario next time. Cadence Grey had a creepily silent mind, and only the occasional “om” betrayed the fact that she was actively meditating. Emefa Austerley was impatient with this whole exercise, since she imagined herself as a Spartan-warrior type, not a teacher to a bunch of annoying younger trainees—and when were Combatants going to be treated like the serious national assets they were?

At the third decagon, Snowden Gainey wondered what people thought of him, and Tom let him know by pondering at length the stupidity of the simulation from Applied Scrimmages. Mason Meekins desperately needed to use the bathroom. Britt Schmeiser kept thinking about a girl he met on the publicity tour, which made Wyatt get the word “boobs” in her head again.

At the fourth decagon, the solemn, dark-haired CamCo Alec Tarsus began thinking right away that Tom was an uneducated simpleton. He also thought Wyatt was too intelligent to function on a normal human level and that was why no one really liked her. This hurt Wyatt’s feelings, which affronted Ralph Bates, who liked her long, beautiful legs. Wyatt thought about how Ralph had given her the initial tour when she arrived at the Spire, and how even back then, he smelled like onions despite the fact that he hadn’t been eating them.

She hurt Ralph’s feelings, so he consoled himself by thinking she had a horseface, which hurt Wyatt’s feelings and made Tom mad enough to think about punching Ralph’s face in. Ralph thought Tom was as deranged as he’d always heard he was, but Wyatt thought about how fantastic it was that Tom threatened people on her behalf. Lea Styron was annoyed by this because she felt that Wyatt shouldn’t be encouraging Tom’s behavior. Chivalry wasn’t charming, it was a weapon of patriarchy, and all in all, this felt like a waste of time to her because she’d already decided she wanted to work with Walton Covner. Tom spent the rest of the time thinking about gnome minions, which unfortunately, confirmed Alec Tarsus’s simpleton theory.

Soon, the entire group broke up, and the veteran CamCos gathered together to laugh over things they’d gleaned from the thoughts of younger trainees.

All except Heather. She stood apart from the group, glared at the rest a moment, then stalked out of the room. Tom remembered what Wyatt had said earlier and nudged her. “So what happened with her?”

Wyatt beckoned for him to walk to the stairwell with her, and even once they were enclosed in there, she spoke in a whisper. “During the CamCo publicity blitzes, someone began leaking rumors about the other CamCos to the tabloids. True stuff the public couldn’t know.”

Tom remembered those internet rumors he’d seen about the CamCos. “Britt Schmeiser’s weekend of debauchery?”

She nodded. “That sort of thing. Alec Tarsus net-sent me over vacation and asked if I could figure out who was doing it. I traced it to Heather. I guess she wanted to give her own image a boost by making the other CamCos look bad. I told General Marsh. She ended up getting yanked from all her PR gigs.”

“Good job.”

“Thanks.” Wyatt ducked her head, her dark hair sliding in front of her face. “Tom, I have to ask you something. It’s very important. Above all, I need you to be completely honest, whatever consequences might ensue. Can you do this for me?”

Perplexed, he said, “Yeah, hit me.”

She twisted her fingers together, resembling a nervous squirrel. “Do I really have a horseface?”

“No, you don’t.”

He expected that to make her feel better. Instead, Wyatt’s scowl deepened. “You don’t have to lie to me!”

And to his bewilderment, she stalked off down the stairs without him.

After dinner, Tom headed to his bunk, and there he discovered that Vik had been busy. At some point in the evening Vik had duplicated most of the bunk template Wyatt had given him, sneaked in, and transformed Tom’s bunk.

Tom turned around and around to take in the full tableau. There were posters on the wall of angry-looking Wyatt scowling at Tom and following him with her eyes. Other images featured freeze-frames of Tom’s greatest embarrassments—Tom as a sheep, Tom styling his hair with gel in front of a mirror with a very prissy look on his face after Dalton Prestwick of Dominion Agra reprogrammed him, Tom eating steak off a knife. And there was a massive Tom statue that resembled Vik’s statue. It opened its mouth and proclaimed: “IT IS 1915 AND THE GORMLESS CRETIN SAYS: DERP!”