Assimilation (Concordia Series Book 1) (26 page)

I feel time slipping away. My throat goes tight as I consider what it might do to the rankings. This distraction is my fatal mistake. The paintball catches my right temple. All I can do as I fall, seeing stars, is think vaguely that it’s a good thing it wasn’t my left.

Another hit like that could end you,
Sheila’s voice rings out in my head.

I arrive at the keeping feeling utterly defeated. Belgrade’s smirk as the rankings went up felt specifically meant for me. Krill took third. And Paolo, who reached the pad without a single spot of paint, edged past me. I’m now fifth. Thankfully, Yaryk is still far enough behind me that I’m not in immediate danger of being overtaken.

Though Melissa and I were fatalities, our team beat Lyder’s both in time and body count.  Stacy successfully led Mish and Delphi to victories of their own, widening the gap between their factors and those of Lyder’s top two.  The day wasn’t all bad, but with only two days left, I’m terrified.

After reaction center, when we should have been released from Assimilation for the day and all I wanted was to change out of my gear and hop on the slide, Belgrade ordered us back to onboarding facility. He kept us waiting for another half hour after that before strolling on in and casually dropping code chips on our desks.

“Study up,” he sneered. “You’re dismissed.”

I wasn’t up to reading on the slides, so I flop on the couch with a pre-dinner snack and insert the chip into my logger.

My pudding spills the floor as I read the updates.  Forget our rankings. We’re all reset to zero. We’re to pack anything we need for the final two days of Assimilation and report to the proving grounds dormitory at 5 a.m. tomorrow morning. We will not be allowed to return to our keepings until after our factors are read before the Tribunal the day after Assimilation ends.

Nothing we’ve done so far matters. 

For better or for worse, our fates will be determined over the next two days. There will be no pairings, no alliances. Though our facilitators are still our facilitators, we’re team-less. It truly is every man and woman for themselves.

The agenda for Days 59 and 60 says we’ll take ten exams, each with one hundred questions and a time limit of thirty minutes. We’ll be matched in one-on-one, hand-to-hand combat with thirty randomly chosen opponents. Those fights will take place in blocks before, between, and after the exams. Lastly, we’ll face eight scenarios in the reaction center, each with a two hour time limit, and these will also be interspersed with the exams and combat sessions.  The scenarios are the only thing affected by our prior rank and factors. They’ll be drawn based on a combination of our prior factors and the ones we achieve during these final days.

It all boils down to two days. Two long, exhausting days by the looks of it. The first ninety minutes will be spent on administrative tasks: being assigned to a dormitory, receiving our gear, and meeting with our facilitator for the last time before factoring at Tribunal.

After that, the fun begins. With meals, breaks, and travel time figured in, we’ll be active from approximately 7 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. on Day 59 and from 5 a.m. until 11:30 p.m. on Day 60. No matter what time we finish, we’ll report back to the dormitory to ready our belongings for departure the next day and receive our Tribunal instructions.

The rankings will only be available one time during the two days at the proving grounds, and that’s at 11:45 p.m. on Day 59. We’ll have no idea of our final rank until our facilitators recite our factors in front of the Tribunal.

That last part is horrifying. The thought of entering the Tribunal building with no idea what my factors are is worse than anything I’ve imagined. Having to wait to find out my fate until I stand in front of Janat, Millick, and Danig again is impossibly cruel. If I factor poorly, I’ll be disposed right then and there. No goodbyes. No last words.

I think of Ritter. His presence is required because our fates are intertwined. If I fail, he’ll face immediate Disposal also. I imagine he’ll spend these two days with his parents, Strega, and his friends, making sure to say his goodbyes. Just in case. I think of Strega and how this is, unexpectedly, my last chance to see him before my factors are read.

I can’t catch my breath. The room spins around me, my skin flushing with heat. Combat breathing takes over, but another wave of panic hits, this one chased by sorrow as I wish wildly for my father. He could tell me something that would help. Some military tidbit to aid me in this final battle.

Oh, God.

This is really it.

Two days.

Just two.

My vision blurs with unshed tears so that I can’t see my logger. I want to ask Strega and Ritter when they’ll be here. I need them. Both of them.

As if responding psychically to my need for them, they enter the keeping together, in the middle of a conversation.

“Davinney!” I’m not sure whether Ritter sees me first, crumpled on the floor, gasping, or my spilled pudding, but he’s alarmed. “What’s wrong?”

I don’t protest when Strega pulls out the alpha inducers. They don’t do much to calm me. Or they do, but the effects wear off almost instantaneously. I blindly shove my logger across the tiles in his general direction and hear the scrape as he scoops it up.

Strega rubs my back in small circles, firing caretaker-y questions at me. Ritter’s silence implies he’s flipping through the screens.

Strega’s head snaps up moments later when Ritter lets out a long stream of Concordian curse words and falls on the sofa with a resounding thump. He plucks the logger out of Ritter’s limp hand and reads it for himself since neither of us has the power to tell him.

While he reads and paces the room, I wonder vaguely if this will be how I end. Unable to rise from the floor, I’ll miss the final two days altogether, factor at zero, and they’ll have to come here to get me in order to dispose of me.

After long minutes forcing my breathing to fit the four, four, four, four pattern I know so well, I’m finally able to lift my eyes to Strega’s. He drops the logger on the sofa, eases down to his knees, and pulls me in.

I peek at Ritter over Strega’s shoulder. If he’s jealous, he doesn’t show it. He doesn’t react at all. Relieved, I turn my face into Strega’s neck, breathing him in as if I can bottle him somewhere inside and carry him with me for the next two days.

I know I’m not alone in my dismay. They’ve heard me discussing factors and rank like baseball scores. Or Offset scores. Strega is gob smacked. Ritter is so horrified he’s silent. Motionless.

Strega lets go, pulling away, only to draw me back again for another few moments.

Neither Ritter nor Strega leaves my side that evening. One or the other of them is with me at all times, probably worried I might make a run for it. They hover nearby as I log Mina and Melayne to suggest we celebrate on the Saturday after Assimilation ends. If there’s anything to celebrate, that is.

Ritter shadows me as I pack what I think I’ll need. There are no suggestions on the chip in my logger. I pack lightly, just two spare outfits, bands to tie back my hair or tuck it into a bun, and the extra vials of toothwash, sleepbringer, and moodleveler Strega ordered up from the MedQuick.

Strega insists on giving me a thorough exam, but I refuse to go to holding. I allow him to do as much as he’s able in the cleanse. Afterward, he and Ritter both nag at me to eat even though I can barely choke anything down.

Ritter insists on accompanying me to the proving grounds the next morning. Strega agrees. Ritter resets the alarm in his unit and asks Strega to override the MedQuick, which thinks it’s too early to surf the rift. He doses himself with sleepbringer, leaving me alone with Strega.

“You should probably have some sleepbringer, too,” Strega says huskily, his voice rough.

I shake my head. “Not yet,” I say, rising up on my toes to kiss him.

He tugs me closer. I can feel everything he wants to say but can’t find words for as his lips brush across mine, his hands burying themselves in my hair.

23

IF RITTER IS angry at finding Strega and I twined together on my rift, he doesn’t show it. Other than waking us, he makes no comment. The meld to this borrowed unit of mine whispers shut again. Part of me wants to run after him and explain that all we did was sleep. I don’t know why. I don’t owe him that explanation.

Strega pushes my hair out of my face, staring as if drinking me in, enough to last for a lifetime instead of two days.  Let’s face it. He might have to make his memories of me last that long. The thought turns my stomach.

“You’re cold,” he frowns when he finds my hands with his own.

Now I know that blankets
can
be used with a rift. When two bodies are present, the rift apparently adjusts to an average ambient temperature. Strega could heat a whole quadrant with his body warmth, but my hands and feet are frozen.

He presses my cold hands against his chest and covers them with his own, wincing a little. I smile.  He tries to, but he can’t quite pull it off.

“I’ve been in the top half for most of Assimilation,” I say lightly. “No reason to think that will change just because they start us over from scratch, is there?”

He swallows hard and nods.  I wish he were a better actor. With a kiss, I slide off the rift and make my way to the cleanse.

I don’t make them nag at me to eat a hearty breakfast. I choke it down just like I choked down last night’s dinner.  I don’t comment on the fact that Ritter and Strega do little more than push their food around on their plates. If I didn’t know I need as much fuel as I can get for today, and either of them would let me get away with it, I’d be doing the same thing.

As we walk silently to the slide, I wonder if this is what people on death row feel walking the green mile, that proverbial last hallway before the electric chair or lethal injection or gas chamber. I want to memorize everything, Concordian or not. The crispness of the air, the way it smells like ozone today and feels charged with the electricity of a coming storm. The feel of Strega’s hand holding mine. Ritter’s jittery walk and the way he thrusts his hands through his hair every dozen or so steps until he looks like Albert Einstein, the junior edition.

I would return to Attero in a heartbeat, but I’m startled to realize that Concordia has come to feel like home, too. Maybe because of Strega. Maybe because, as my dad says, I adapt quickly to change. Duh. After twelve moves, you have to. Thirteen moves, if I were still on Attero.

Or if I count switching parallels.

Thirteen moves, I realize, glancing at Ritter. The last one unintentional, of course.

We’re silent. All the way there, we’re silent. Even Ritter, and you usually can’t shut him up. There’s no mercy of time for us today, either. We reach the reaction center pavilion at 4:46 a.m.  I know it’s a five minute walk to the dormitory, which means I have about nine minutes to say what could very well be my final goodbyes.

I turn to Ritter first. Even silent, he’s alive with motion, swaying back and forth to keep from pacing. He fidgets with the fabric handles of the bag I packed, which he insisted upon carrying. His jaw and eyelids twitch. His mouth works, trying to find words before it gives up, his lips pursing tightly. He doesn’t hug back when I put my arms around him, but he makes a little strangled sound. I feel the shudder course through him. It’s taking everything he has to keep it together.

“I won’t let you down, Ritter. I won’t let you be disposed,” I promise thickly.

The shudder that follows those words is worse than the first. My bag thuds to the ground as his lips press hard against my forehead, and then his fingers replace his lips, forming the familiar slanting line across my skin. And then he’s gone, whirling back toward the slides.

I can’t bear to watch him go, so I turn to Strega. I can see in his face how desperately he wants to apply the alpha inducers. My heart swells a little in my chest at the fact that he fights the urge.  I’m afraid if I embrace him, I’ll never be able to let him go. This time it’s me that refuses to hug back, but Strega won’t have it. He squeezes me tighter as if it will lever my arms. Maybe it works, because suddenly I’m squeezing back.

Too soon, he forces out the word I least want to hear.

“Go.”

I don’t make any move to release him. His breath catches in his chest. I rise onto the very tips of my toes so that my lips are at his ear.

“I love you.”

I can’t hear it returned to me. If he keeps it, that means I’ll be back in his arms in three days to hear his reply. I scoop up my single bag and run.

I don’t look back.

I group log Mina and Melayne as I sit on my assigned rift in the dormitory, ignoring the loud chattering all around me. We’re waiting for Belgrade to arrive and dole out our schedule chips.  Neither of them answer the logs, so I copy them both on a text.

Final two days.

Before I can explain I cannot be reached, Belgrade appears in the meldway. Though we will shortly be team-less, they’ve chosen to put each former team in a room together. Instinctively, without being asked, we line up at the foot of the rifts as though we were enlisted and he were our drill sergeant.

He holds up a bag. “You’ll insert your loggers here and receive a temporary replacement with your schedule chips and exams already loaded. The exams won’t unlock until the appointed times. There will be no reminders. If you’re late for any activity, exam, or scenario, there will be no adjustment for you. These loggers won’t allow outside or inside contact with anyone but me. If you feel your logger isn’t working properly, visit my quarters for diagnostic testing. I recommend you check your logger before and after any scheduled activity, because the schedule is subject to change at any time.”

He proceeds to order each of us in turn to power down our loggers and drop them in the bag. The second I get my replacement, I check my schedule. It’s a good thing, because I am ordered to the onboarding facility for my first exam, History of Concordia.

I finish all of the questions before it locks. A message blips across the screen reminding me that rankings will be available tonight at 11:45 p.m.

I have to run to make it to the location they’ve chosen for my first combat session. It couldn’t be farther away if it were outside the proving grounds at the slide station. I’m woefully out of breath when I arrive, and there’s no time to tape my hands or wrists.

I cringe when I see my opponent.

Julian.

The rules for combat for these last two days are strict. If you render an opponent unconscious, you lose the same amount of time from your next activity as it takes for them to rouse, whether that is a few seconds, an hour, or an entire day. Shots to the sides or back of the head, neck, knees, throat, or genitals are prohibited, but everything else is fair game, including the face. If a fallen opponent doesn’t rise to at least their knees within fifteen seconds, the round ends. Otherwise, the round ends at two minutes, not including any stoppages.

After any given combat round, there’s a ten minute window for Respite care. Beyond that, you either show up late to your next scheduled event or you suck it up and move on.

Julian’s eyes are huge and unblinking when he sees me. There are shadows of bruises on his face, but I doubt they’re from today.  He’s my first match. But then, maybe I’m not his.

“Hey,” I greet, flashing him a smile. He doesn’t smile back. So much for old times.

I war with myself during the countdown. He’s thirteen years old. He was, before today, the lowest ranked member of both Lyder’s team and his redistribution team. But I’m starting at zero just like he is. Can I really afford to throw this one to give him a boost?

My indecision costs me a foot to the jaw, just as I remember that he won’t face disposal. He’ll just be sent home.

Dummy,
I chide myself, vowing to keep the consequences in mind next time. Parallel of origin is public information.

His blow makes me stagger, but I don’t fall. Where did that come from?

I won’t say I’m merciless with Julian after his surprise kick. There are definitely shots I don’t take and punches I don’t entirely avoid. But after that surprising first strike, I put my guard up and shift into offensive gear. He’s on the mat in under thirty seconds, in spite of my allowances.

He doesn’t rise.

Once the match is over, I reach a hand down to help him up, but he ignores it. He says nothing, just takes his logger from the aide assigned to our mat and checks his next activity. Resigning myself to a day of forgotten semi-friendships, I do the same.

The day blurs on. I take two back-to-back exams. The first, Concordian Customs, is more challenging than I would have thought. I’m certain I never even learned some of the customs they ask about. I ponder over some of the questions for too long and my logger locks with six questions unanswered. Thirty minutes for one hundred questions forces a brisk pace.

On the second exam, The Language of Concordia, I whip about a quarter of the way through before I realize I’ve been choosing many Atteroan terms by mistake. It’s a photo and sometimes a video quiz, and I realize, for example, that I marked “door” for the picture of the meld and “bed” for rift.  I guess Concordian terms aren’t becoming as automatic as I thought.  Especially not under pressure. Luckily, I finish early enough that I’m able to scroll back to the beginning and change those wrong answers to the right ones.

I move through a long stream of combat sessions with only a thirty minute break and a scenario for variety.  I grow more and more uneasy. My opponents have been easy to beat.  My first scenario felt almost too simple, leaving me to wonder whether I missed something obvious.

I think back to those horrible tests they give in grade school to see if you know how to follow directions.  The ones with, say, thirty items. The teacher tells the class to read the entire exercise first, before completing any of the items.  Inevitably, with our short attention spans, we begin quacking like ducks or running laps around the room while patting our heads, proving we didn’t read it all the way through. If we had, we would’ve found the very last item advised to disregard all the rest, sit quietly, and watch our peers fail the exercise.

It’s lonely. With all of us out for ourselves, everyone else is the enemy. It’s hard not to resent the others when they do well, and it’s equally hard to feel badly when they don’t.

At my next break, I duck into the cleanse and stare at myself in the mirror, taking in the minor damage I’ve sustained so far: a scratch across my left cheek from a fall in the reaction center and the barest hint of a bruise where Julian’s foot connected with my jaw.

In the outdoor rest area, a shadow falls across my logger as I’m checking how much time remains before my next combat session. I lift my head.

Krill grins back at me.  “How’s it going?” he asks, easing down beside me on the grass.  When I don’t answer, he rolls his eyes at me.  “Okay, so I wasn’t all that nice when you outranked me.” He shrugs. “What difference does that make now?”

I roll my eyes back at him. “Having a good day so far, are you?”

His grin grows wider. “Yeah. I think so, anyway. And it sucks there’s no one to share it with. Then I saw you. You don’t look too banged up, so I figured maybe you’ve been doing pretty good, yourself.”

I shrug. Unlike Krill, I’m not willing to tempt fate. I know the other shoe will drop. When it does, I won’t be surprised. I won’t moan about how unfair it is. And I won’t have to eat any crow.

“You are,” he teases. “You know you are. Because when you’re not, you get vicious.”

I look at him like he’s grown a second head. “How do you know I haven’t been vicious already?”

This is all too amusing for him. “If you’d been vicious, Julian wouldn’t have made it to his next activity on time.”

My eyes narrow. “How did you know I was matched with Julian?”

He points his logger my way and mine pulls his data share, calling up a screen I haven’t seen, didn’t even know was available. We’ve been given access to the schedules of every teammate we’ve had.

I’m not sure why he shared that tidbit with me or what difference having the information will make, but I notice he’s nearly due for an exam. The schedule page he shows me doesn’t say which one.

I nod, rising, and check my schedule again. No change. I still have a combat session in four minutes.

He nods back as I pull my map of the grounds to find the location of the session.  “Until we meet again,” he smirks.

We haven’t been matched up for combat yet. I’m hoping he’s not one of my thirty random opponents. I’m not looking forward to that possibility. I’ve bested him fewer times than I have fingers on one hand. He has every reason to be confident where I am concerned.

He has even more reason to be confident after my combat session ends.  Stacy Brass all but wipes the floor with me. At first, I’m surprised to find she’s pretty battered, but the session proves she’s still in fine form. Thinking back on it, maybe I was just a little more confident than I should have been. I wonder if Krill’s friendly conversation wasn’t a very subtle manipulation. Subconscious, even.

“Good match,” she says breezily, offering me the same hand I’d offered Julian. Now I understand why he didn’t take it. I don’t want her pity, her winner’s grace.