Assimilation (Concordia Series Book 1) (27 page)

I ease to my feet, my ribs smarting from her kicks. At least she’s not walking away unscathed. Her nose is dripping all over her uniform. I check my schedule and bite back a groan. There’s no time for a visit to Respite. I’m due in the reaction center.

And from there, with no idea how I did in the completed scenario and no idea how I’ll survive what’s next, I have to rush off to another combat session.

I’m forced to limp away from my narrow victory against an impossibly fast, stereotypically ninja-like Japanese girl whose name I can’t pronounce, and I’m late to the exam that follows.

I’m pretty sure I factor poorly on the exam. I’m starving, thirsty, light-headed, and I have to forcibly refocus my eyes as the questions blur and clear, blur and clear.

The day will never, ever end. Yet it also speeds by, a strange paradox of time. After the exam, my schedule reads clear for forty-five minutes, which feels like heaven. I’m torn between eating and Respite. Then I hear Strega’s voice in my head, urging me to rebuild first, patch up if there’s time.

He’s right, of course. I feel incrementally better after sucking down the large meal the ScanX allows, taking a liter of water with me as I limp quickly to the Respite facility.

Though she functions at the proving grounds, it would have been far too coincidental for me to get Sheila Rosen for my Respite caretaker. Instead, I get a very elderly man who has to be nearing the end of his functioning years, especially when you consider how well people age on Concordia. He talks to himself about me rather than talking
to
me, muttering words I only occasionally catch. After he puts the contents of three mystery vials on a large bandage that he wraps around my sore knee, I leave with the largest cling pack I’ve ever seen. It’s big enough to cover my entire left side and shoulder.

I’m gratified to see I’m not the only one suffering. The grassy area is littered with bodies sporting cling packs, bandages, and blood spattered uniforms. Given a choice between food, rest, and changing clothes, we choose to rock our dirty uniforms.

The thing I worry most about once I’m situated on the grass with my cling pack is falling asleep. Dosed with some sort of pain killer, the absence of discomfort rather than the medicine itself makes my eyelids heavy. I set my logger to shriek loudly at ten minutes before my next reaction center scenario.

The alarm definitely saves me. Judging by how groggy I feel, I must have slept hard in those precious few minutes. And they were definitely few. The cling pack hasn’t even fallen off of my body yet.  I leave it there, clinging unobtrusively to my skin, hidden by my shirt.

I lose twelve minutes, almost half of my next exam, after a kick to the sternum in the last of two back-to-back combat sessions knocks me out. The actual unconsciousness, brought on by the inability to catch my breath, lasted only four minutes. In that sense, my opponent will fare better than I at his next activity. I can’t even remember his name, but his feet were quite punishing.

I rush through the exam, this one on Concordian technology, figuring it’s better to get a few questions wrong out of haste rather than leave them unanswered. It’s still too many questions and too little time. I curse the fate that grants me thirty minutes free time after the exam instead of before.

Darkness fell hours ago. The air outside has grown too cool for most. The rain that threatened never materialized, but it’s unseasonably cool for late August, even in the Pacific Northwest. The wounded and weary now litter a scattering of couches and the floor of the indoor rest area. I join them, choosing a place on the floor against a wall.

“You look like hell,” a voice says from above me.  Krill. Again.

I crack one eye open. When I see that he, too, is bruised and bloodied, I open the other. “Look who’s talking,” I say, taking in his right eye, which is nearly swollen shut, and his crusty, swollen lower lip. He’s still in good spirits, however.

“10:05,” he says after glancing at the screen of his logger. “Just shy of ninety minutes before our torture ends for tonight. And then the rankings go up.”

I nod.  I don’t have the energy for many words.

He sighs heavily. “I’m through with the exams,” he tells me. “All ten. I’m guessing that means tomorrow will be pretty tough, with only combat and scenarios.”

I blink. “I’ve lost track of what I’ve done. Maybe it’s better not to know.”

Krill lifts his logger and shows me where to find a screen that displays which activities have been completed and which are still outstanding. I feel stupid. This is the second time he’s shown me something I could have discovered, myself, if I’d bothered to look. There are no names or other description for the exams, combat sessions or scenarios, just a number of each.  His exams are at zero. He’s got four scenarios and twelve combat sessions left. That’s eight hours of scenarios alone. Although the actual combat sessions will total just twenty-four minutes, once you figure in breaks, Respite, and travel time from combat arena to combat arena, he’s easily going to fill the entire thirteen hour day.

I’m not sure I want to see my results, but they show I’ve taken half of my exams, completed twenty out of thirty combat sessions, and finished three scenarios.  If I didn’t have any other activities scheduled for the last hour tonight, tomorrow would hold five scenarios, ten combat sessions, and five exams. Although I’m glad to have the exams to balance out the day, I know that since scenarios are two hours each, I will be spending ten grueling hours in the reaction center.

The alarm on my logger shrieks, and Krill glances my way as I check it. My schedule has changed. Instead of the exam I thought I’d be taking, I’m now being directed to the combat arena for another match.

“Bad news?” he smirks halfheartedly. This time he’s not being perceptive. My stoic countenance slipped completely, and my displeasure is plainly displayed on my swollen, cut up face.

I just grunt at him and walk away.

24

AT 11:20 P.M. I stagger out of the combat arena, unsure I’ll make it to the nearby Respite center under my own steam. Five combat sessions down, five left for tomorrow. It felt like each match was progressively more difficult. I won three of them, but it feels like less.

This time I get a young female caretaker with the bedside manner of a facilitator. Liza Benkara, her name plate says. She’s not gentle as cleans my various open wounds. She doesn’t speak to me at all other than to bark directions at me, to raise this arm or roll over onto that side.

I don’t feel in the least self-conscious that I’m in my underwear on the temporary rift or that there are other candidates on either side of me who are similarly dressed. The only thing that keeps me from falling asleep, in fact, is the pain.

Liza offers no encouragement. She applies various tinctures and mysterious creams by rote. When she finally tells me to get dressed, it takes me long enough to get up off of the rift that she’s vanished completely. She apparently grew so impatient with me that she stood my logger up, the screen showing an arrow pointing to four vials and the words: “Take just before sleeping.”

It feels like the temperature has dropped another twenty degrees since I’ve been in Respite, but it’s probably the effect of something Liza applied to my skin. I shiver violently, but I welcome the alertness it brings. The dormitory is a long walk from Respite.

Our assigned unit is utterly silent. I’m the last of my former team to arrive. Equally shadowed faces lift from pillows, all eager to see how I’ve fared. My face is unreadable again. I stare back at each set of eyes in turn and wonder if mine look so devoid of hope, so beaten down.

I sit cross-legged on my rift. If I stretch out, I’ll fall asleep and miss the rankings. I place the vials on the small shelf next to my rift and watch the minutes pass. I wish I could pass time by logging Strega and Ritter, but my real logger is in a bag somewhere on the proving grounds.

No one speaks. I almost want to strike up a conversation. Though his sneering confidence is annoying, Krill’s company has been the odd bright spot of my day. But he’s got his eyes closed and seems disinclined to have a chat.

When I’m nearly asleep sitting up, a series of quiet beeps circuits the room like the falling of dominoes. My logger screen reads that there are 2,986 candidates and advises that a ranking of “one” indicates the highest rank possible. 

Sounds of confusion circle the room.

“2,986 candidates?” Yaryk asks aloud.  “I thought there were 300 of us.”

The murmurs crest and fade out as another beep sounds. The next screen advises that I am number 687. A quick calculation confirms I’m in the top third. That’s good. Better than I imagined. Surely it’s good enough to avoid Disposal. But there’s still tomorrow to face, and anything can happen.

No one shares rank, and the puzzlement over the number of candidates dies as quickly as it was born. I don’t tell them what I overheard as Belgrade and Melva carried me to Respite.

Almost in unison, we close out the screens and switch off our loggers. I study the vials and see they’re numbered. I swallow each down in the order prescribed, making sure I’m comfortably situated on the rift before I take the last one, knowing how quickly the strange liquids can work.

25

AN AIR RAID siren wakes the entire dormitory at 4:30 a.m. on Day 60.

My first observation as my eyes sweep the room, my heart pounding from the terrifying awakening, is that we rise mechanically, like robots responding to command.

My second thought is more of a realization. My body is sore but far less sore than I expect. No doubt this miracle is owed to something in the vials. I marvel at the mild pain, the minor protests of overworked muscles and still-healing skin pulling taut as I notice there’s a fresh uniform tucked into the wall cubby next to each rift.

An instruction screen pops up on my logger directing me to leave yesterday’s uniform on the floor below the cubby. When I clear that screen, my schedule pops up. I’m due for combat at 5:15 a.m.  That leaves just under thirty minutes to grab breakfast and, if I have time, check in with Respite.  I wonder whether it would even be worthwhile, given my minimal amount of pain. But what if the others feel even less pain this morning?

I study them for a few moments before leaving the dormitory. Stacy Brass is moving slowly, deliberately. She favors her left arm, dressing almost entirely with her right.  Krill, who isn’t smiling today, seems to have no trouble pulling on his shirt or pants but hesitates before putting on his shoes.  Yaryk is still on his back on his rift, holding the logger up over his face to read it. Everyone else has already left the dormitory.

If it weren’t for the air raid siren that woke me, the slight scrape of boots on gravel, and the sounds of birds and wind, I’d wonder if I’d been struck deaf by yesterday’s blows.  The grounds are eerily silent. No one even whispers to another. We walk like ghosts through the outdoor rest area, filtering silently into the large servette.

I wait dutifully in line for my chance at one of the ScanX units, worrying over the time.  I hear Strega’s voice again, urging me to rebuild, and my eyes fill.

Even ranked at 687, I don’t feel safe. So much can happen in a day, and the five scenarios worry me more than the combat sessions.  Until yesterday, I thought two hours in the reaction center for each scenario was generous. I was certain I’d finish with plenty of time to spare…time that I’d be able to use freely. Instead, the scenarios were more intricate, with multiple objectives, such as finding objects and delivering them safely to the pad while protecting a certain person at all costs, puzzling my way through a hazard-filled landscape that’s booby-trapped to the hilt. And that protected person always seemed to have a hidden agenda that was at odds with my attempts to protect them.

When a shadow falls over me, I almost smile. Instead of finding Krill standing over me, however, it’s Stacy Brass. She’s holding her breakfast and contemplating a place next to me on the damp lawn. She chooses to lean against a tree, instead.

“How are you doing?” she asks just when I start to think she’ll say nothing.

I consider how to answer. She has no interest in other people, so she’s asking for herself. “As good or as bad as anyone else, I guess,” I say around a mouthful of food.

She rolls her eyes and looks at the ground again. I realize her predicament. Whatever her injuries are, she’s reluctant to sit down in the grass. Standing, she can hold her meal but not eat it. She either can’t use her left arm at all, or she’s in so much pain she doesn’t want to.

I fight a pang of sympathy and continue eating. I can feel her eyes on me even if I can’t see them. When I finish, I look up to find her staring.

“What?”

She looks away, saying nothing.

“I don’t have time for this,” I say, not really angry but the edge in my voice probably makes it sound like I am.

It’s not entirely truthful. I have almost fifteen minutes before my combat session will start. About ten, really, if you consider travel and prep. I’m determined to tape up this time, to protect my bruised, split knuckles.

She looks down at the meal she can’t eat, and another twinge of sympathy flutters in my chest. Checking my schedule again, I flip open the ScanX box, peel the banana, remove the lid from the yogurt and plop the spoon in it, and tear the heat-trapping cover off a plate of omelet.

Scanning the rest area, I see a girl burst off a nearby bench as if her uniform was on fire, probably late for her next activity. I dash over to it with the box and place it the space she left behind.

I turn and nod at Stacy.

She doesn’t thank me.

Shaking my head, I roll my eyes and take off in a trot toward the combat arena, just because I can. It’s mean, but I hope she watches me go.

My first combat session is followed closely by a second.  The first is easy. I’m matched with a guy on one of the lowest ranked teams, and though I try to remind myself not to assume anything, his clumsy effort makes it clear that he’s learned little over the last two months.  The second, however, is rough.

“Krill,” I say flatly, hoping he doesn’t notice me suck in a breath.

I can’t help but think of the 1980’s version of
The Karate Kid
as we bow to each other, though I’m not sure who’s going to be the Daniel LaRusso of this scenario. I’m certainly not going to pull out the crane technique.

The buzzer sounds. We circle each other warily. I know all of his weaknesses, and he knows mine.  The thing that sucks for him is that he can’t exploit mine…blows to the sides and back of the head are illegal now, in these final matches.

I dodge his fist, putting him off balance, and kick him solidly in the gut. His eyes darken and go flat. No more Mr. Friendly from the rest area.  His answer is vicious but not unexpected. Still, not willing to risk losing points by being chased out of bounds, I hold my ground and let his fist sink into my ribs, ducking back to soften the follow up blow to my jaw. Even with less than total impact, my face throbs.

I catch him in the eye and then the nose, wishing he were Stacy Brass. But he’s not slowed by a gushing nose like she would be, and he lands another two quick jabs to the same rib and to my stomach. The world blurs. I land on both knees, trying to pull enough air to get up before my fifteen seconds expire. 

He’s waiting, ready. Since I’m on my knees already, all I must do to stop the clock from counting down to my defeat is lift one hand off the mat. The fight will resume, but Krill will surely kick me while I’m down. I’m trapped watching the clock as it flits past nine, eight, seven…

I fake my rise, falling backward onto my elbows and catch him in the hip with my thrusting heel. It’s his turn to fall.

He laughs sourly, rolling. “Should’ve shifted and let you nail me in the crotch,” he pants, “stick you with a penalty deduction.”

He makes it to his knees at two seconds remaining.

I’m on my back, seeing stars, watching the clock counting down on me again as blackness edges into my vision. A harsh voice barks at Krill, issuing a penalty.

I can’t pass out.

I can’t lose time.

Another hit like that could end you,
Sheila says, staring down at me. My left temple, I realize as her fingers wander over the tender skin.

I blink. She can’t be real. The clock stops at eight seconds. Am I on my knees?  I blink again. Eight gives way to seven, six, five...

No. They’re my fingers, not Sheila’s. I’m rubbing my temple. She’s not here, not real.

Krill’s heel crashes into my jaw. My head goes back and a sudden flash of him trying to put on his boots this morning makes me grab his ankle and pull him past me, using his fall to lever myself upward. As he falls past me, I thrust my elbow into his kidney. His cry is so loud it echoes in the arena.

He writhes on the mat for the entire fifteen seconds.

I stumble away feeling like the loser.

I take my ten minutes Respite, my eyesight and balance thrown off by Krill’s cheap shot. I’m not stupid, and I don’t think I was kidding myself. I know we aren’t friends, and I haven’t forgotten that at the end of the day, it’s every person for themselves. Still, Krill’s ruthlessness in the combat arena feels like a betrayal. But isn’t it fair to say I took the knife from my back and plunged it into his?

I’ve lost, if not a friend, the only distraction in my day.  I think about Krill through two exams and the first of five scenarios. I’m actually disappointed to find myself on a twenty minute break.

My uniform is wet and cold. I was tasked with protecting a guy twice my size and delivering him safely to the concrete pad. Hit by a sleeper dart, he was out cold. My only chance to get him to the pad in enough time was to drag him to the pond and swim him across. The water temperature was nearly at freezing. Waking to find himself in icy water was apparently his worst nightmare, and he flipped out on me.  I’m pretty sure he couldn’t swim to begin with, which only heightened his panic.  Instead of realizing he was perfectly safe in my lifeguard hold, he decided I was trying to kill him and proceeded to try to use me as a human life raft. I had to punch him into submission.

Outdoors, the weather is mild, but I’m freezing and my chest still hurts from choking up brackish water. Indoors, I feel clammy and a little claustrophobic. I’m not hungry or particularly thirsty, but I order hot chocolate and a cup of beef vegetable soup from the ScanX just to unthaw my insides.

If I thought yesterday was quiet and lonely, today is downright funereal. No one makes eye contact. Not intentionally. Any eyes that happen to meet mine dart away quickly. One young boy, who can’t be older than Julian, weeps openly in the corner of one of the sofas. No one offers comfort. Tears sting my eyes, but I don’t offer any, either. It would only be hypocritical since I would just as soon send him to the mats.

You never realize how important human interaction is until you go without. Those days in the keeping, when Ritter and Strega weren’t talking to me were rough, but this is impossible. Rather than making us reach out to each other desperately, ignoring the hypocrisy, we shut down. No amount of recognizing it, of understanding it, does anything to change it.

Strega and Ritter pass through my thoughts. I expect to feel crushed by the weight of loneliness, but it’s like I’m standing outside myself, watching myself like a character in a movie.  Oh, look how she sits, dazed, in the cramped room, one dismal face in a sea of dismal faces. Look how she considers touching the other broken souls as they pass, faces bent to their loggers. Look at them all, how they hang their heads in defeat, how they curl up into and around the aching parts of themselves. Thought bubbles over their heads show they’re pretending the arms they wrap around themselves are someone else’s arms, comforting and warm.

And safe. Most of all, safe.

“Just a little longer,” I whisper encouragingly to myself after the next scenario brings me what could have been a fatal fall down a mountain.

A Respite caretaker uses liquid stitches to close a wound that stretches from the middle of my thigh to my knee.  I think of Attero and how our surgeons use it, too.  Medical grade superglue, putting people back together since 1966.

I blink at the readout on the screen. It’s almost six-thirty. I’m due in the reaction center for another scenario in less than fifteen minutes. I crave steak. Probably from the blood loss. Once a month like clockwork the same thing happens.

I greedily guzzle a bottle of water that tastes faintly of lemon and swallow the contents of a vial the caretaker hands me. Within moments some of the sting from the gash goes away, bringing my pain level down to something much more tolerable.

I don’t know why the caretakers have stopped talking to us, but the Respite facility is tomblike. Not a single word, not even to instruct a ward, is uttered. Instead, when they want us to move this way or that, they tap us on the right or left. I wonder again if I’ve gone deaf, but the whisper of uniforms and the soft clink of vials being returned to the MedQuicks prove I can hear.

“They’re doing it on purpose,” I say aloud, forcing words into the air, an assault on my fellow candidates. They can’t stop me from speaking or themselves from hearing. “This silence,” I say, “it’s intentional. We’re losing our minds in this silence.”

No one answers. The caretaker taps my good leg and backs away from the rift. She points to the meld, signaling that I can go.  I look out at the dozen or so rifts in this Respite unit, at the bodies on them. No one looks back.

“You don’t have to let them do this to you,” I tell them. “Just talk. To yourself, to anyone. Just talk. If we weren’t here, forced to fight each other like dogs, we’d probably be friends.” I nod at my own words, my throat tightening a little more with each one. “I bet we would,” I nod again, backing slowly toward the meld. No one answers.

I can’t breathe. Four, four, four, four doesn’t work when you can’t breathe at all. My heart is going to burst in my chest. The wall outside the Respite facility is cold under my still damp uniform, and the bloodied fabric over my left leg clings stickily to my skin. Things start to swirl around me.

“Hey,” Strega says. He doesn’t reach for me, though. He doesn’t dip into his pockets for those magical disks that will quiet my mind, and this time I really want him to.

When I step forward, he vanishes.

Oh, God.

I really
am
losing my mind.