Then Vik lifted a small, rounded object with a flattened base that Tom recognized from the infirmary. “What do you suppose this thing does? It was on the floor, not on any of the racks.”
Tom quashed his smile. “Oh, I know what it is. Press that button on top.”
Vik pressed the button. Confusion furrowed his brow when the device started beeping.
Tom drew a deep breath, then bellowed, “IT’S A GRENADE!”
Vik gave an earsplitting shriek and jumped so high, he crashed back into the wall, sending the device clattering to the floor. Tom cackled gleefully and scooped the device up, then flipped off the beeping. “Just kidding. It’s a timer thing. I’ve seen them in the infirmary.”
Vik snatched the rounded timer from him and peered at it suspiciously. “I am going to put you in the infirmary now, you gormless cretin. Find something we can duel with in here so we can launch eons of dynastic Raines-Ashwan warfare.”
Joy filled Tom, and he scoured around, hoping for some knives or something similar, but just as he claimed his gun, Wyatt joined them. She looked at Tom with one gun, Vik with another, and halted in her tracks.
“Are you guys seriously messing around with real weapons?” she exclaimed. “It’s like you want Darwin Awards!”
Tom flushed, and set his gun back on its hook. “It’s not like we were going to start a dynastic war or something.”
“Yeah,” Vik said guiltily, returning his own weapon.
Wyatt bit her lip. She threw an uneasy glance around them, looking daunted by the sight of all the weapons, right there for the taking. Tom spoke as casually as he could. “What did Blackburn want?”
Wyatt reached out and poked at a piece of armor with a finger, like it was some animal that might snap at her. Then she poked it harder when nothing bad happened the first time. “He found out about something I did during my vacation, and he said it was good work.”
“What?” Vik said.
Wyatt shrugged mysteriously. “He also said he knew I didn’t hack his profile and he tends to assume the worst about people, so he apologized for getting so upset about the Roanoke thing and discontinuing my programming instruction.”
“And, what, you forgave him?” Tom blurted. “After he yelled at you like that and ignored you for weeks, he just has to say sorry and you’re over it?”
Her eyebrows drew together in her long, solemn face. “He said he was really sorry.”
“You saw what a psycho he was, Wyatt. He turned on you for no reason before. You think that can’t happen again?”
“It was only because you said that Roanoke thing. That’s the only reason he acted that way. Obviously it was a sore point.”
“No. No, you don’t get it,” Tom said, agitated. “It’s not a sore point. It’s the only point. That guy you saw that day? That’s the real Blackburn. Trust me on this.”
“I know him way better than you do, Tom.”
“No,” Tom said, raking his fingers through his hair, frustrated. “You think you do. You see the way he pretends to be. He pretends to be reasonable; he pretends to be sane. He’s not.”
He stopped talking, since Wyatt and Vik were both looking at him strangely.
The thing was, they knew Blackburn had tried to “fry his brain in the census device,” in those exact words. Tom had never told them much more than that. He hadn’t told them Blackburn had set out to tear his mind apart when Tom had refused to show him his memory of Vengerov; they didn’t know Blackburn had threatened to wipe out the Spire’s systems, just to stop Marsh from freeing Tom; they didn’t know Blackburn had a vendetta against Joseph Vengerov, since Vengerov had intentionally implanted him with a neural processor that he knew would kill him or drive him insane. They didn’t know that during his psychotic episode, Blackburn had accidentally killed his own kids, and as a consequence, he’d thought nothing of destroying Tom in search of something he could use in his vendetta against Vengerov, the man he held responsible.
But Tom couldn’t even begin to tell his friends about this. Not any of it, because there were too many secrets, not all of them his, and they were all tied into the memories Blackburn had discovered in his brain. Blackburn miraculously turning around and forgiving Wyatt felt like a direct threat to Tom. Sure, he might’ve been the one who told Blackburn that Wyatt never hacked his profile, that she didn’t even know about Roanoke, but Tom hadn’t done that to reconcile them. . . . He’d done that to rub Blackburn’s mistake in his face.
He regretted it now.
They headed out of the armory to join the rest of the Middles who were trickling into the Calisthenics Arena for their morning workout. Tom, Vik, and Wyatt waited outside the armory along with the other four new Middles—Makis Katehi, Kelcy Demos, Jennifer Nguyen, and Mervyn Bolton. They all nodded at each other, but no introductions were needed; they’d been plebes together.
Soon Tom realized who they were waiting for. His fists clenched.
Lieutenant Blackburn ascended the stairs from the lower floor of the arena, then halted before the armory. With a tap on his forearm keyboard, he caused eight of the machines that resembled headless, metal skeletons to step down from the platform and march out to stand before them.
Blackburn turned to them. “Let’s get started, Middles. You’ll find Calisthenics much like it was when you were plebes—exercising, simulated images to motivate and direct your actions, that sort of thing. There’s a notable exception: the armory. Each Monday, simulations are programmed to expose trainees to a variety of weapons that military research and development plans to give to future, neural processor–equipped soldiers. Since muscle memory is vital, we physically give the trainees weapons without ammunition. Not only does this enable you to learn how to use them, but it enables our researchers to study how well you’re able to use them solely from the downloads installed in your processors. One of these weapons is particularly dangerous. Since they can only be controlled by someone with a neural processor, I’m the lucky guy stuck teaching you how to use them without killing yourselves or anyone else. What’s the first rule of this lesson you’re going to have with me?”
No one answered him. Tom had no idea.
Blackburn held up a finger. “Rule number one is: my time is infinitely more valuable than yours. Don’t waste it by messing around or ignoring your instructions. I will tell you once, and I expect you to remember. You have photographic memories and superhuman brains. You have no excuse for inattention, and no excuse for forgetting what I’ve said. Now, let’s discuss these exosuits.”
He thumped his palm on the nearest metal machine.
“There are your basic strength-enhancement tools. You see, top brass believes that every armed en terra—Earthbound—conflict in the future will be handled by a small number of soldiers. There’s a compelling reason for scaling down the number of soldiers in the armed forces: it’s easier to find one man willing to fire upon civilian insurgents than it is to find a few thousand. It’s cheaper to pay one soldier than it is to pay thousands. So these individual soldiers have to be walking arsenals. They need to be in command of heavy machinery that one person can’t possibly handle unless he has inhumanly superior strength and stamina. That’s where exosuits come in.”