Assimilation (Concordia Series Book 1) (20 page)

And now, nothing. Nothing except the swarming, tinkling rush of glass and metal pluming out toward the Challenge onboard like a wave lapping at shore. We don’t notice her, the woman grabbing at us, snatching us out of harm’s way. We don’t notice our blood and our tears mating and mingling, in a race against each other for our toes. What we notice with startling clarity for a boy of four is that it is our fault that our best friend’s parents are dead. Somehow, some way, we made this happen. Us.

I can’t breathe. That’s the first thing I am aware of, before I even begin to feel my own fingers and try to rip them from Strega’s arm to disconnect myself from him, from the twin crush of horror and sorrow. From the scream echoing in my head as we separate back into our two selves again:
I did this! Me! I did this!

And there the hands are, grabbing at me.  They know it, too. I willed it, and it happened.  I violated the kill standard. The guardians, it is their hands I feel. They’re coming for me, to take me to the Disposal launch.

I call out for Strega. But suddenly I can’t find him. He’s not there. I’m alone outside the Challenge onboard, stuck in the Concordia of his four year-old memory, the guardians in their shadowy dress, reaching for me. Reaching…

But just as suddenly, Strega gasps, his eyes locked on mine, the lines I was tracing oddly hot under my fingertips. His free hand, the right one, is clamped around my chin.

I can’t decide which of us is gasping louder, shaking harder. I think he recognizes me at the same time as I recognize him and where we really are, safe on Ritter’s sofa. But even laid bare as we had been, he’s managed to keep some of his composure where I have not. I launch myself into him, burying my face in his neck.

“It’s not your fault, Strega!” I sob wildly into the heat of his skin, over and over. There’s one little flinch, just a flicker, and then the ever calm Strega takes over.

“I know,” he says so that I feel the rumble of his voice against my lips, my nose. “I know,” he soothes. “I’m sorry, Davinney.  I’m sorry that’s what you found for your trace.” Such deep regret tinges his voice that I begin to refocus. It was just a memory, a really, really bad one. He couldn’t control it. He didn’t give it to me intentionally. And how must he feel, having me see what must have been the worst day of his life, his worst memory?

I take a deep breath, determined to shrug it off when I notice the look in Strega’s eyes. Concerned, of course, but also sad. In them, I can see the twelve year-old boy who, contrary to his words of assurance, still believes on some level that he killed Ritter’s parents. I deny the question I want to ask, which is whether he’s psychic. He appears to read my thoughts sometimes, like during those first days in holding. I wondered if I’d been speaking out loud but knew I hadn’t. It’s a little too coincidental, I think, that he had his childish revenge fantasy just before the imaginary crash became reality. But rather than causing it, I wonder if he merely sensed it was coming.

I am so wrung out by what just happened that I want to beg Strega not to leave. Ritter’s not home yet, and I don’t want to be left alone in the keeping because I’m pretty sure I’ll be replaying the whole thing, from my movie night popcorn fight to the death of Ritter’s parents, over and over and over again.

Strega makes no move to leave, however.  I sit shoulder to shoulder with him. It’s dark in the keeping with only moonlight pressing on the glass now.  Night fell as we traced. 

“Do you have any happy memories in there?” I ask him softly, just to make conversation. Fatigue rolls over me like a wave I didn’t see coming. I drop my head to the sofa cushions, wondering if this is normal after tracing someone.

“Sure,” he answers sleepily, and I can all but feel him smile in the dark. I wait. He offers nothing further, and I realize his breathing has become deep and even.

I close my eyes and don’t try to wake him.

16

“DAVINNEY,” LYDER GESTURES to me as everyone else enters the reaction center, passing under a viewer which reads,
Day 28
. Instead of our usual morning classes at the onboard, we’ve gone straight to the reaction center.

I move to stand beside Lyder just outside the center’s meld.  I wait. The thing about Lyder is she remains silent until you’re really sweating whatever she’s about to say, and then she says it. Sometimes it is worthy of the build-up, sometimes it isn’t.

She motions to me to follow, returning to the hallway that leads to her office. Once I sit down across the desk, she gestures to the wall behind me.  When I turn, she plays footage of Kate talking to someone in the library.

Me,
I realize, my abdomen suddenly clenching. It was the day we talked about erasing. There’s audio, but it’s only of Kate’s end of the conversation. My replies aren’t heard. They’ve been muted or scrubbed. I am nowhere on the video, apparently out of reach of the camera.

As soon as Lyder clicks off the footage, I turn back to her, forcing my face to remain blank. I’ve cultivated this blankness very carefully since the beginning of Assimilation. Others have commented on it more than once, asking how I do it. I just tell them, with the same flat expression, that I can’t teach them. They have to learn it on their own.  And it’s true. I couldn’t explain it if you paid me.  I just know it’s important. I feel it.

Lyder realizes I won’t react. She blinks slowly. “Have you seen Kate today? Or Farthing Stanton from Belgrade Minor’s team?”

“No,” I shake my head. I recognize the name Farthing Stanton. He’s the bouncing knee guy who sat next to me on Day One, before we were split off into teams. Several times a week we’re matched with other teams for hand-to-hand combat and other drills. He’s pretty good, but he’s not ruthless enough with us girls, so I’ve beaten him every time we’ve faced off. “They aren’t in the reaction center?”

“No,” she replies. She blinks again. “Do you know who Kate was talking to in the library?”

“No,” I lie smoothly, hoping to God she’s not going to pull a BAU out to test my answers.

“Any idea where Kate or Farthing might be?”

“No,” I say again, this time truthfully.

Lyder blinks at me.  “Consider very carefully what you’ve just seen. It’s extremely strange that the footage doesn’t reveal Kate’s conversation partner.”

“It is,” I agree, wondering what Lyder’s angle is. Maybe Kate isn’t really gone. Maybe Lyder will play her a video of me talking. Maybe in this version, Kate will be the one off screen. Lyder will tell her I’m missing and ask where I am. Maybe this is all one big set up.

Her lips fade into a tight line. “You’re on thin ice, Davinney. Your attitudes about Concordia’s technology, customs, and practices are less than accepting in many cases.  You complete the tasks that are given to you, yes, and while you do not openly defy the spirit and the nature of the exercises, your derision is abundantly clear. On paper, so to speak, by the numbers, you’ve done well with Assimilation so far. I’d hate to see you throw it all away with the sort of mistake Kate made here.”

“And Farthing?”

“A similar mistake,” Lyder replies.

I wait, sensing there’s something else she wants to say.

“On Day 30, there will be a redistribution bid,” she explains coolly. “The teams will be recast. High ranking facilitators will option the strongest candidates from the teams of lower ranking facilitators to increase the strength of their own. In turn, they can dump their poor performers on lower ranked facilitators. Just like any function, a facilitator’s function level is affected by all aspects of their performance.  My function level relies at least partly upon my ability to produce successful Assimilation candidates.”

There’s a long pause while, I imagine, she waits for her words to register.  She must be telling me this out of fear for her function level.

“You’d better hope no one options you,” she says. Her voice is even colder now than it was seconds ago. “I’ve been lenient where others would be firm.”

“Have you?” I ask.

Lyder’s eyes flicker. “Consider very carefully this apparent disappearance of your fellow candidates. Kate in particular. She hasn’t performed as well as you,” she says, rising. She stares down at me with her flinty, grey-blue eyes. “I was lenient with her, too.”

She waits for her words to sink in before dismissing me.

As I hurry toward the reaction center, my face is predictably blank, but my mind is racing.  Assimilation candidates have scores and rankings called factors.  At the end of Assimilation, our factors will be presented to the Tribunal by our facilitator. I never for a second considered that Lyder might not be the one to present mine.

Given her coldness just now, I’m not sure what would be best…to remain on her team or to be optioned out.  Her assurance that she’s been lenient hardly seems true. She doesn’t smile for anyone; she never compliments even the best performance. It’s always just flinty-eyed assessment and tight-lipped watchfulness. Very rarely have I gotten even a hint of an approving sort of vibe from her, when I have been particularly punishing in hand-to-hand combat or unusually clever in a reaction center simulation. Not often, that’s for sure.

I join the others, allowed a sixty second screen view outside the meld so I can plan how best to assist with the current objective, which is to get all members of the team to the concrete pad without any “fatalities”.  Fatalities are judged by the amount and location of red paint splashed over our uniforms. 

Though I have no desire to lead, I do have pride. I hate to lose or to rank in the bottom half of our team even for one exercise. I’m already furiously switching from camera to camera to locate my team in the center.

Yaryk is stuck behind the first of many barriers, a splash of red over his left knee and his right side. Usually one of the best, I can only figure he urged the others to go first so he could follow behind to protect and assist them.

Krill is behind the next barrier. As he pokes his head up to check for paintball fire, he gets pinged in the nose. The red gush down his face is fantastically gruesome. He crouches back down, facing toward me, looking irritated.

June and Marco have already made it to the pad, each with a heavy dose of red paint, but their profile squares are ringed in green, which means their elapsed times are good enough to imply that if their injuries were real, they would have received medical care quickly enough to survive. So far, no one’s profile is red, which would mean a fatality.

Julian’s not looking good. He’s only two barriers away from the pad, but he’s splotched all over his torso and limbs. The fact that he’s just sitting behind the barrier, making no move to reach the pad tells me he thinks he’s already a fatality. He’s given up. He does that a lot.

Everyone else is marked with at least a little red. Maybe Kate could have gotten out unstained.  My heart twinges in my chest as a long beep signals the last ten seconds of my strategy session. 

I’m plotting how to rescue them when Lyder’s words echo in my head.
You’d better hope no one options you…

The higher ranked facilitators will want high ranking candidates to improve their teams, and they’ll dump low ranking ones.  I’m in the upper third of our ranks, but I’m not top dog. That’s Krill. Then Yaryk. Then me. With Kate gone, we really are split into thirds now: upper, middle, lower. Three of us in each category with no tenth team member to throw off the math.

The reaction center meld opens, and I charge forward blindly, still without a solid plan. I duck and dodge a few paintballs. I have to do well, but not so well that I pass Yaryk. We’re close.

Still, I grab him and force him to run at my side, shielding him from the heaviest paintball fire, which is coming from our left.  I’m not quite fast enough to dodge a hit to the shoulder, and while I’m recovering from that, I get hit in the thigh.

Yaryk, registering that I’ve taken two hits in ten seconds, switches positions with me.  I don’t want to come out at the top or at the bottom. If I’m ranked too high, I’ll get optioned away. If I’m too low, Lyder might dump me on someone else.

Yaryk gathers Krill, and when he takes another hit, we put him in the middle. We continue to gather and duck, gather and duck, until we reach Julian. There’s not enough room behind the angled barrier to shield us all, so I call to Yaryk and Krill to go.

It’s a bad suggestion, but they take it, realizing there’s not enough barrier to protect us all. We’re sitting ducks. Losing them allows me the safety to catch my breath.

They make it to the pad and are declared “green”, but that was the mistake. Julian should have gone in the first run. He’s just a few seconds past the hidden deadline, his profile going red to signal that he bled out. Disappointment claws at me as Wendy and Randy make it to the pad with plenty of time to spare. Emma, the slowest of us all, sets out alongside me. I quickly realize if I stay to protect her, I’ll be a fatality. I abandon her to chance, figuring I’ll already slip in the ranks for my bad call.

In the end, Julian and Emma are fatalities. The other seven of us survive. When the ranking boards update, I have to fight to stay blank. A giddy smile threatens.

I’m out of the top third now, my name first in the middle group. A good place to be. No facilitator will option me, but Lyder would be stupid to dump me. After the redistribution, I’ll work hard to get back into the top third.

I move through the rest of Day 28 hoping I can repeat my performance tomorrow so I remain solidly in the middle. I’m too afraid of either of the other options to consider anything else.