Freefall (9 page)

“Well—I'd just like to have a little more proof than your instinct, which might have us wandering around in the desert for the next forty years.”

“Proof? Proof is that I know the base is that way and you are not sure.”

I look “that way.” It doesn't look any different than any other way. There are rolling hills, rocks, and bramble bushes. I rub my eyes. Lily is convinced. She starts to walk.

“Follow me,” she says.

I hurry up to reach her. I think I'd rather be lost in the desert with someone than lost on my own.

“Can you just stop for a second? Maybe we should check the map?”

“We're not supposed to, and I don't know how to read those things. I follow my gut.”

I swear she's almost trotting. I jog up beside her. “How is it that you are so sure you know where you're going?”

“Trust me.”

“Why? Give me one good reason”—my voice wavers on hysteria—“why I should trust you?”

She sticks her sweaty face in mine. “Wake up. When do you ever think you'll be stranded in the desert with no map and only a compass to guide you?”

I plant myself in front of her and don't step back. Her body is oozing heat and sweat and between us there is an electric charge so hot it could burn a hole in the ozone. “Now!” I yell. “Now we are stranded in the desert with only a compass. If your instincts are guiding us in the wrong direction, we won't be showering for the next week, never mind the next few hours.”

“My instincts are impeccable. What's lacking is your trust. Can't you trust me enough to get you back?”

I take a deep breath. I don't have much choice. If I look at the map, we'll be disqualified. If I go with Lily, we might arrive, and then if we don't, we'll be disqualified anyway.

“Okay. Since I don't know which way to go and you say you do. Lead on.”

She turns her back to me. I jump around in front of her in time to see her slip something into her pocket.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

“It's not nothing. I saw you holding something.”

She sighs. “Okay, Aggie. You caught me. I surrender.”

She pulls out a small palm-sized instrument.

“GPS!”

“Shh!” She puts up a hand to hush me even though there's no one in sight. “Sound travels in the desert. If the other girls hear you, we'll have the whole bunch of them here.”

I stamp my foot. “Lily, you'll get us disqualified. You'll get us thrown out. How could you do this without asking me? You know we're supposed to be trying to figure this out on our own. I trusted you.” I take a deep breath, fighting for control. “We've come so close to finishing and now you pull this kind of stunt. What were you thinking?”

Lily stands in front of me and crosses her arm over her chest. “I was thinking,” she says, “that I need this more than you do. If you fail, you'll use that brain of yours and your connections to get some high and mighty position. You don't need to pass these field tests. This is just a game for you.”

“That's not true.” My voice wavers.

Lily has her hands on her hips and cocks her head at me. “You know it's true. Here's your proof: you can't even look at me when you defend yourself. And see, if I don't pass this test, what's waiting for me? I'll get stuck behind a desk where I'll be making coffee for some general and maybe getting my behind pinched by whoever's walking by at the moment.”

She wipes the sweat from the back of her neck. “So, are you coming with me or are you going to stand there on your high horse preaching about honesty, integrity, and equality for all?”

“But it's cheating. It's not right.”

Lily snorts. “Where did they find you? Beam you from Planet Virgo? If you've never done anything underhanded, then you haven't been living in this life. Life doesn't follow strict rules. It makes them up as you go along. So to keep one step ahead, you just have to be sharper and quicker and not let anyone grab your behind because you're already five steps out of their reach.”

“We could have figured it out on our own.”

“Give it a rest. We haven't been drafted yet and we certainly won't die out here looking for our way back to base to take a shower. It's not real life. And you can trust me. I'll get us back to the base in no time.”

“It feels cheap,” I say.

Lily laughs. “What's wrong with getting the same boots for a good bargain at the market that would cost you a whole lot more in a fancy store?”

For all my supposed braininess, she's got me stumped on that one.

Chapter Nine

Being angry with Lily is just too
hard. About ten meters after our argument she breaks into the chorus of the song I hate the most.

“I'm walking through the desert with no horse and no name.” She's doing the chicken walk and sticking her neck out on every beat.

Suddenly I spot, jutting out of the rocks, two poles waving blue-and-white flags with the Star of David on them.

“Base!” I shout. In the distance a few tents and barracks stand out against the endlessly blue and unchanging desert sky. Like a fata morgana, out of nothingness the base begins to take shape. A command car is parked at the entrance, where strains of a familiar tune from the radio break the silence. A bus pulls up to the entrance and passes through. The high barbed-wire fence looping around the perimeter with points like cactus spikes should be threatening, but right now I couldn't imagine a more enticing sight.

“You mean we really made it?” says Lily.

“We did. We made it!”

“Hallelujah! This thing really works.”

Lily and I throw our sticky arms around each other and start dancing. “We made it! We made it!”

Arm-in-arm, romping and shouting, we dance our way to the entrance of the base, where two Rambo-style soldiers are standing guard. I tug off my army shirt and twirl it in the air. We must look ridiculous, but I don't care. My tank top clings to my chest, glued on by hours of sweat and filth.

“You guys look good enough to hug,” says Lily.

“Yeah,” says Rambo Number One, “but you girls don't. Not like that anyway. Got soap?” he says.

“Soap!” Lily sings. “Soap and shampoo! What would I do without soap and shampoo? Feeling so good. Can't wait to be clean. Rid my bod of these ugly greens—”

“Lily, enough! They get the point.” Our sweaty, dirt-stained bodies coupled with shouts of joy are all they need for identification, and they let us onto the base.

“Follow the lime-powdered stones on your right to the third set of barracks,” says the amused soldier. “Your commander will meet you there.”

Like Dorothy on her way to Oz, we skip down the path that hugs the perimeter of the base. It's after lunchtime, but I swear I smell schnitzel frying. A signpost points to the dining room behind us. I'm hungry—but first I need to shower.

“Soap and shampoo,” we sing. “What would we do without soap and shampoo …”

We reach the third set of barracks, dash past the flagpole, and scout for the showers.

“Over here!” shouts Lily. “And they're empty. Yes!”

I'm yanking at my rope belt as I run when a familiar voice stops me cold.

“So you've made it back.”

“
Ken
, Commander.” We snap to attention. Feet at a V. Arms by our sides.

“And where are you going now?”

“To shower?” I remind her. “You said we could shower when we got back.” Something behind my knee is itching to be scratched. I imagine my whole body crawling with ticks and ants and desert parasites. I need to shower. I need to scrub my body clean. The hunger and exhaustion I felt before seem inconsequential compared to my burning need to wash my body clean.

The commander doesn't move. She looks us up and down. She's showered. She's changed her uniform and even blow-dried her hair. She looks at my tank top. I slip on my army shirt.

“What about the others?” she asks.

“The others?” asks Lily. She's pulled her shirt back on, too, but hasn't buttoned it up.

“Don't you think it only fair that you wait for the other girls to arrive so that you can all shower together?”

We both know the right answer. She's not commanding us; she's not forcing us. But from the tone of her voice we know that there is only one right answer, the one she wants to hear.

“Of course,” says Lily.

“Good.” The commander points to a tent beyond the barracks. “We'll gather there for a short recap and then you can
all
go off to the showers.” She starts to walk away and stops. “By the way, Eighteen, you'll find your bag with the rest of the girls' stuff.”

“Thank you,” I say, though it's hard to sound sincere. Lily and I trudge over to the tent.

“We were so close,” she mutters. “She promised that the first ones back could shower first.”

“Just a little bit longer,” I tell her.

The tent is a huge canvas tarp propped on poles and open on all sides. A few chairs, a ratty sofa, stuffed pillows, and some tables are scattered underneath it.

“Finally,” says Noga as we walk in.

She's got big ugly scratches on her face and down her arm.

“What happened to you?” asked Lily.

“Why?”

She hasn't got a clue how bad she looks. Mirror deprivation. I'm afraid to see the effect it's had on me.

“Nothing,” says Lily.

Pigtails answers for her. “She got her foot stuck and tripped into a thornbush. What took you guys so long?”

“Our Lamborghini stalled at the last water hole,” says Lily. “What do you mean, what took us so long? At least we're here. We can't shower until the rest of them show up anyway.”

The four of us sit and wait. Rolling up my pant leg, I see that I haven't been imagining it: my leg is covered in strange, red blotchy dots. I scratch.

Gradually the tent fills. Argentina and Amber, flushed and looking like they're on the brink of dehydration, arrive last.

“Good, you all made it back,” says the commander. She nods at Pigtails and Noga. “The two of you did a commendable job. You were back first. Did you need the map?”

Pigtails shakes her head. “No.”

“Who led?”

Pigtails rubs her hands on her knees. “Well, Noga collected a lot of beautiful rocks for her collection of moon-glazed stones.”

Lily laughs. “I bet.”

“That's enough. This exercise is as much about getting from one place to another as it is about working together.” She turns to me and Lily. “You two also managed to get back here quite quickly.”

I nod. I can't look at Lily.

“Do you have anything you'd like to share with us?”

I shake my head.

Lily doesn't say anything either, so I gather she's giving her blank stare.

“Did you have to look at the map?”

I shake my head.

“Did you want to?”

I nod my head.

“And how did you get along?”

“We argued some,” says Lily. “But then Aggie decided to, uh, see things my way, and so we worked things out.”

The scribes write furiously on their clipboards.

My eye is twitching. I pretend I've got some dirt in it and rub until it stops.

The commander turns to Amber. “If your partner wanted to look at the map and you didn't and in the end she did and that's what got you back here, would you admit to having used it?”

She swallows. “Would it mean failing this test?”

The commander doesn't answer. She's got the look of a sniper. No detail goes unnoticed. “Where are your loyalties, girls? To the army? To each other?”

Amber chews on her sun-chapped lip. She's struggling.

The pit in my stomach is getting bigger. Lily sits beside me, but I think she's stopped breathing. She's not waiting to hear what Amber has to say; she's waiting to see what I'll do.

If I confess that we've cheated, we'll both be disqualified.

“It's complicated,” says Amber. “It's like a bit of both.”

The commander waits. “That's not a good enough answer.”

Loyalty. I swallow. I'm not thinking about the big reasons. I'm thinking of Lily, who wants more than anything to be accepted into this combat unit. Lily is a leader. She has instincts. I realize that I'd want her on my team. And if the sacks of sand, the dirt, the ticks, the scabs, and an infected hangnail didn't break her, who am I to pull her down?

“It is both,” I say, looking at Lily. “If we aren't loyal, then how can we learn trust—and isn't trust essential in knowing that you can rely on each other when it really matters?”

Noga nods vigorously. “Exactly.”

“Up to a point,” adds Amber.

“There's got to be a point,” says Pigtails. “I'm just not sure I can definet for you yet.”

I agree, but like Pigtails, I'm not sure where we're supposed to draw the line. I'm not sure it's something we could all agree upon.

The commander has a facial expression that I'm finding hard to read. Her lips have curled up at the corners and she seems—yes, she appears to be smiling. My heart feels like it's bursting.

“Congratulations. I think you girls deserve to get cleaned up before you go home and celebrate.”

“You mean, we made it?” asks Pigtails.

“I mean that you've succeeded in getting through this part of the exercise.”

“Can we go shower now?” asks Carolina.

“That's an order.” She makes a face. “It's getting hard to be around you girls.”

We rush out of the tent and cut back toward the barracks.

“Did you see the way she smiled at us?” I say. “I thought I was going to die.”

“That'll be you one of these days,” says Lily, stripping off her army shirt as she runs.

I'm right behind her when I hear a guy's voice calling me.