Tom thought of his father suddenly. Neil blustered his opinions to everyone, whether or not they wanted to listen . . . and that never accomplished a thing for him. It was strange how Neil wasn’t really a threat to anyone, but merely because of the way he talked, he was treated like one.
Blackburn folded his arms. “I may not know what you did to provoke Joseph Vengerov, Raines, but I know one thing: you showed your hand so he struck first.”
“But I didn’t,” Tom protested. “I didn’t cross Vengerov openly. The thing is, he wanted me to make contact with Medusa again and use a computer virus on her. I never had a chance to say no. As far as he was concerned, I hadn’t made up my mind. I hadn’t told . . .” He fell silent.
His breath caught. He had told someone.
He had. Just one person.
Tom felt sick. He’d felt strange hanging around his friends, because some part of him somehow knew who had passed the information on to Vengerov, who had to have done it.
Only one person had the faintest clue that Tom had already been meeting Medusa. Only one person could’ve told Joseph Vengerov that Tom was in contact with Medusa but wasn’t deploying a virus on her.
The same person who’d been scrambled because the military thought he was a Russian spy.
It was Yuri. Tom’s brain beat with the terrible realization. It was Yuri. . . . It was Yuri. . . .
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
TOM GENUINELY WASN’T sure what to do about Yuri, and he couldn’t seem to get a chance to get Vik’s advice, either. Vik always seemed to be off doing something else. Since Medusa hadn’t visited him since he’d kissed her, and their two simulation groups were due to battle, Tom decided to get to Vik there and tell him the situation. Quite inconveniently, the simulation that day turned them into cavemen.
All Tom could manage when he spotted Vik was a grunting battle cry. Vik’s prominent forehead furrowed. His grunt in return was unenthusiastic. Tom charged at Vik with a rock in hand. Vik waved his club angrily. Tom hurled the rock and got Vik in the ribs.
Vik flopped to the ground, his club rolling out of his hand, but when Tom finally jumped on him and began slamming him over and over again, Vik only halfheartedly tried to wrench his grip away, like he wasn’t into the fight.
It made Tom sad. He couldn’t talk to Vik about Yuri, and now Vik wouldn’t even fight. He hit Vik across the chest. “Why no fight? Fight Tom!”
Vik grunted unhappily. “No.”
Tom hit him again. “Fight now!”
Vik’s lip puffed out. “No!”
Tom grew very confused and released him. He scratched his head. Even if his brain had been fully functioning, he was sure he wouldn’t be able to understand Vik’s reluctance to brawl. They liked brawling. They did it in VR games all the time.
“Poor Vik,” Vik grumbled. “Vik sad.”
He squatted on a boulder and picked an insect out of his tangled mass of hair, then contemplated it solemnly. For a fleeting moment, despite the prominent forehead and primitive facial features, he almost resembled the black-and-white, mock-philosophical Vik picture in Wyatt’s bunk template, since he was obviously contemplating weighty matters in a very un-Vik-like manner. Quickly, the illusion was dispelled when Vik put the bug in his mouth and chewed.
“Why sad?” Tom demanded. He thumped his fists against his chest. “Vik fight. Happy Vik.”
Vik groaned and buried his head in his arms. “Vik see Tom go. Vik no say. Tom get cold. Bad Vik.”
Confused, Tom settled back on his haunches. “Vik not bad.” He fumbled for something better to say than that and came up with the perfect words to rouse his friend’s spirits and restore his faith in himself: “Vik . . . good. Vik good!” He hit Vik’s shoulder. Hard. “Good! Vik friend. Fight hard. Strong Vik. Fight Tom?”
Vik shook his head, his lip puffed out again. “No.”
Tom knew there was some way to fix this, but it was hard to hold on to any thoughts for very long with his brain this way. Tom ambled away and found a bush of berries. He scarfed down a bunch, then saved others. He took the rest to a new Middle, Iman Attar. She gave him a big, toothy smile of greeting when he offered her the berries. She gobbled them greedily, but when Tom tried to grab her, she grunted angrily and pointed at Britt Schmeiser, who was hurling large rocks very long distances.
Tom knew a challenge when he saw one. He shuffled forward to grab big rocks of his own, and began hurling them, too. Iman clapped her hands and cried, “Strong Tom! Good Tom.”
Tom liked that. Britt noticed all the attention he was getting and got mad. His lips rolled back to expose his teeth at Tom. Tom showed his own teeth and roared at him. Britt ran over and hit him about the head with his big arms, but a swipe of Tom’s arm knocked him over. Then he took a rock and hit Britt’s head over and over with it. He roared with victory and turned to enjoy Iman’s admiration, but she was shrieking and kicking and being dragged away by the hair by Yosef Saide. Tom rushed over and killed Yosef, too. By then, Iman was grumpy and tired and wanted nothing to do with any boys in the simulation.
“Bad Tom!” Iman hit him on the head with a stick. “Ugly!”
Tom grew sad. Iman hit him one last time and ran away. Tom’s feelings were hurt, and so was his head. He’d nearly forgotten his abbreviated conversation with Vik when the sim finally ended, and Tom woke up in the training room.
Britt and Yosef were already in grim conversation, haunted looks on their faces.
“. . . a catastrophe,” Yosef was saying. “What were you thinking? Why would you choose that program?”
“The title was the First World War. I thought it would be World War One, not literally the first world war.”
Tom and Iman exchanged a flustered look, then Tom hurried out of the training room, and ran into Vik right in the hallway. He stopped. Vik stopped.
Vik grinned, a certain lightness to him that seemed forced. They started walking again. “That sim, huh?”
“Come on. You wouldn’t even fight me, Vik. What’s going on with you?”
Vik let out an exasperated breath. “Fine. You really want to know, Tom? Here it is. I have a huge problem with what went down in Antarctica.”
Tom’s steps stuttered to a halt. “Wait. What? Why?”
Vik straightened his collar. “Do you realize I knew you were missing? I noticed way before anyone else did. Way before Blackburn. I didn’t say anything.” He raked his hand through his hair. “I thought you were gone because you’d sneaked off to do something, to mess around or something—like you always do. Like we always do. I thought I was covering for you.”
“Nine times out of ten, that would’ve been the right call, man.”
“I know,” Vik said. “Nine times out of ten, that would’ve been the right call because you would’ve been doing something dumb and I would’ve been helping you. This time, it almost killed you. What about next time it goes wrong?” And then the words all flooded out of him, and he sounded almost angry. “Like with Yuri! You and Wyatt made the decision to unscramble him, but I didn’t get a choice. I would never have done that, but you guys did, and I’m guilty, too, because I’m covering for you.”
Tom stirred, uneasy. Yuri’s unscrambling was hitting a bit too close to home right now.